UK    '  "I   l.D   IIUKKOW    FIVB   THOI  -AM)   DOLLARS    FKOM    1119   UNCLE. 

Frontispiece.    Page  57. 


THE 

LOSING  GAME 


BY 

WILL   PAYNE 


Illustrations  by 
F.  R.  GRUGER 


G.   W.  DILLINGHAM    COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS  NEW  YORK 


Copyright,  1909,  By 
THE  CURTIS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 


Copyright,  1910,  By 
G.  W.  DILLINGHAM  COMPANY 


Tht  Losing  Game 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    THE  WIRE  SHARPS -.™      7 

II    Two  HEARTS  THAT  BEAT  REXFORD 

AS  ONE ,    47 

III  THE  USUAL  HAPPY  ENDING 77 

IV  MR.  REXFORD  is  DISPOSED  OF 92 

V    How  THE  WIRE  NET  SPREAD 113 

VI    AN  ENTERPRISE  WITH  MR.  LANSING  146 
VII    WHERE  THE  MONEY  CAME  FROM  ...   1 8 1 

VIII    FATE  TAKES  ADVANTAGE  OF  JOHN 

POUND  202 

JX    How  THE  PARTNERSHIP  WAS  DIS- 
SOLVED    218 

X  BEING  AT  WAR,  POUND  FINDS  AN 

ALLY 229 

XI  AT  THE  FLOOD  OF  FORTUNE 259 

XII  THE  CAT  COMES  BACK 271 

XIII  How  LUCK  FAVORED  POUND 287 

XIV  DRAWING  IN  THE  NET 302 

XV  SOME  ACCOUNTS  ARE  SQUARED  ....  319 


2137591 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

He    could   borrow    five    thousand    dollars    from    his    uncle 

Frontispiece    57 

''I've  known  of  twenty  thousand  dollars  being  cleaned  up 

on    one    race" 26 

"You've  thrown  me  down!"  yelled  Rexford  ....  108 

He    just    saved     himself    from    blurting    out    idiotically: 
"Thank    you" 114 

"I'd    cover    the   country   with    bucketshops    on    a   hundred- 
dollar    bill" 118 

"This  is  Totherow.     Go  ahead  instantly" 176 

He  swore  she  should  never  set  foot  in  the  office  again  .       .  247 
A  sallow  young  man  with  an  unusually  long  chin  .       .       .  299 


THE  LOSING  GAME 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  WIRE  SHARPS 

IN  Chicago,  one  hot  Wednesday  afternoon, 
a  man  and  a  woman  sat  side  by  side  at  a 
long  table  silently  playing  an  odd  game. 
Each  had  a  pack  of  paper  slips  a  little  larger; 
than  ordinary  playing  cards.  Upon  his  slips  the 
man  wrote  things  like  this:  Cen  130^6  SR  19  BO 
62  >£  'ACP  92^4  RG  24.  When  he  had  written 
three  such  signs  upon  a  slip,  one  below  the  other, 
he  pushed  that  slip  from  the  top  of  his  pack  with 
a  touch  of  his  finger.  The  woman  reached  over 
and  picked  it  up.  In  front  of  her  was  a  round, 
black  metal  disk  a  foot  and  a  half  across,  con- 
taining keys  with  letters  and  numerals  on  them 
like  the  keys  of  a  typewriter,  but  arranged  in  a 
circle.  Putting  the  slip  which  the  man  had  dis- 
carded upon  the  top  of  her  pack,  the  woman's  fin- 
gers fell  lightly  on  the  keys  of  her  machine.  That 

7 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


was  all.  Since  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning  they  had 
teen  doing  just  that  without  speaking  a  word. 

The  man  was  known  as  John  Roth;  but  that 
was  not  his  name.  Some  time  before  he  had 
been  engaged  in  a  wire-tapping  enterprise  which 
had  turned  out  unfortunately.  He  had  good 
reason  for  changing  his  name  and  letting  his 
beard  grow.  The  beard  was  coarse,  straight  and 
of  a  muddy  brown.  His  forehead  was  broad  and 
sloping,  his  eyebrows  bushy,  his  nose  uncom- 
monly large.  His  big,  sprawling  body  had  slipped 
half  out  of  the  wooden  armchair.  He  was  in 
shirt-sleeves,  the  right  cuff  rolled  up  to  his  elbow, 
and  his  back  was  partly  turned  to  the  woman  so 
that  his  upthrust  right  shoulder  seemed  to  ward 
her  off.  Occasionally  he  ran  his  fingers  through 
his  hair.  His  round,  gray  eyes  held  impassively 
to  the  pack  of  white  slips;  but  inside  he  raged 
sullenly,  with  a  gnawing  sense  of  being  an  under 
dog  that  was  not  only  beaten  raw,  but  muzzled. 
He  had  a  vague,  yet  painful,  feeling  that  if  he 
could  only  bite  somebody  it  would  be  a  blessed 
relief. 

8 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


He  merely  touched  the  slips  from  the  top  of  his 
pack,  making  the  woman  reach  an  arm's  length 
to  get  them — which  she  did  silently  and  steadily, 
putting  them  on  top  of  her  pack;  her  fingers 
touching  the  keys  of  her  machine.  Her  brown 
eyes  were  demurely  downcast  to  the  work,  but 
now  and  then,  as  she  reached  for  a  slip,  they 
took  in  the  man's  towsled  hair  and  coarse  beard, 
his  burly,  defensive  shoulder  and  solid  head,  the 
chin  resting  on  his  breastbone.  That  occasional 
look  through  her  dark,  demure  eyelashes  seemed 
to  throw  off  tiny  sparks.  Twice  or  thrice,  also, 
her  lips  parted  slightly  and,  very  gently,  she 
clicked  her  small,  white  teeth  together. 

She  was  a  little  past  twenty-six,  not  very  tall 
and  not  in  the  least  fat,  but  her  attractive  figure 
was  plumply  filled  out.  Her  dress  was  blue  and 
white,  its  extreme  simplicity  suggesting  the  uni- 
form of  a  nurse.  One  might  have  said  that  her 
dark,  velvety  eyes  and  luxuriant  hair  were  her 
best  points.  She  appeared  on  the  pay-roll  as  Miss 
Emma  Raymond. 

The  room  was  about  twelve  feet  by  twenty,  and 
9 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


they  were  the  only  occupants  excepting  the  office 
manager,  who  sat  at  a  desk  over  by  the  window 
— a  man  grown  gray  in  the  service,  now  heavily 
oppressed  by  heat  and  flesh  and  rheumatism.  On 
the  long  table  immediately  at  the  woman's  right 
stood  a  pretty  contrivance  of  burnished  brass.  It 
might  have  been  taken  for  the  show  model  of  a 
complicated  engine,  but  it  was  alive.  Here  and 
there  a  part  stirred  uneasily,  and  at  the  farther 
end  a  brass  finger  moved  erratically  around  a 
wheel,  occasionally  giving  off  little  sparks.  The 
wall  at  the  end  of  the  room  was  taken  up  with 
an  arrangement  of  metal,  tile  and  electric-light 
bulbs.  That,  too,  was  uneasily  alive.  Light 
flashed  and  died  in  the  bulbs,  now  here,  now  there, 
as  though  it  were  trying  to  play  a  tune. 

Nearly  everything  in  the  room  seemed  trying 
to  do  something  that  it  couldn't.  The  man  and 
woman  got  to  no  culminative  point  in  their  game ; 
the  brass  contrivance  stirred  and  sparked,  but 
didn't  go;  the  light  no  sooner  showed  in  a  bulb 
than  it  died.  One  thing,  however,  did  go — a 

little  wheel  in  a  brass  box  at  the  woman's  left 

10 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


hand.  It  went  like  mad,  and  from  it  unwound 
an  endless  ribbon  of  white  paper,  printed  over 
with  letters  and  numerals  like  this:  Cen  130^ 
SR  19  BO  6zy2  ACP  92^  RG  24. 

The  paper  ribbon  was  a  ticker  tape.  The 
letters  and  numerals  on  it  gave  the  price  at  which 
stocks  were  selling.  The  quotations  were  coming 
to  the  man  over  the  "C  N  D"  wire=— the  fast  wire 
direct  from  the  New  York  Stock  Exchange.  The 
woman's  machine  operated  all  the  tickers  by  which 
these  quotations  were  transmitted  to  local  brokers 
and  bucketshops.  The  man  wrote:  "UP  69^ ;" 
the  woman  touched  the  keys  of  her  machine:  "UP 
69^4"  came  out  on  the  tape  in  many  offices  up  and 
down  La  Salle  Street  and  thereabouts;  brisk 
young  men  chalked  the  figures  on  the  blackboards, 
and  a  thousand  gamesters  were  glad  or  sad  at 
seeing  that  Union  Pacific  stock  had  sold  at  $69.25 
a  share. 

Across  a  small  court  from  this  room  was  a 
much  larger  one,  containing  many  long  tables 
equipped  with  banks  of  telegraph  instruments  at 

which  rows  of  operators  were  seated.    From  the 

ii 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


big  room,  through  open  windows,  came  a  wide, 
confused  clatter  as  from  a  huge  swarm  of  metal- 
lic and  unrhythmic  crickets.  The  man  was  aware 
of  this  hard,  rapid,  senseless  clatter;  aware,  also, 
that  it  was  beastly  hot,  for  a  little  trickle  of  per- 
spiration ran  down  his  big  nose.  Mentally,  he 
cursed  the  weather  and  the  quotations  and  the 
telegraph  company  and  everybody  who  was  mak- 
ing a  noise  in  the  big  room  and  himself. 

All  day  he  had  been  writing  badly  on  purpose. 
Now,  he  let  his  hand  slide  off  into  a  half-intelligi- 
ble scrawl.  Moreover,  he  began  to  abbreviate 
outrageously.  In  the  stock  code,  for  example, 
"STP  1  19  24"  meant  a  sale  of  the  common  stock 
of  the  Chicago,  Milwaukee  &  St.  Paul  Railway 
at  $119.75  a  share;  "EF  45  y2"  meant  a  sale  of 
the  first  preferred  stock  of  the  Erie  Railway  at 
$45.50  a  share.  But  he  scratched  down  merely 


With  such  blind  copy  only  a  very  alert  and 
intelligent  operator  of  the  ticker  machine  could 
send  out  the  quotations  correctly.  No  word,  how- 
ever, came  from  the  person  behind  his  right 

12 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


shoulder.  Nobody  called  up  the  manager  to  pro- 
test that  the  quotations  were  wrong.  Evidently, 
she  was  sending  them  out  correctly.  So  the  man 
guessed  that  the  woman  was  able  to  read  the  sig- 
nals as  they  came  over  his  wire.  Now,  an  oper- 
ator of  the  ticker  machine  need  not  understand 
telegraphy.  With  good  copy  the  work  is  quite 
mechanical.  He  had  his  own  idea  as  to  why  a 
woman  who  did  understand  telegraphy  had  been 
put  beside  him. 

The  work  was  finished  about  half-past  two,  and 
a  little  later  the  man  left  the  office.  Striding  over 
the  threshold,  he  noticed  Miss  Raymond  standing 
in  the  corridor.  She  stepped  forward,  and  he 
perceived,  with  surprise,  that  she  was  going  to 
speak  to  him.  They  had  been  introduced  after 
the  manner  of  the  office.  That  is,  the  manager, 
showing  her  to  the  chair  at  his  side  the  previous 
Monday  morning,  had  said:  "Miss  Raymond, 
Mr.  Roth."  He  had  merely  bowed  then  and 
since.  She  had  shown  no  inclination  to  go  beyond 
impersonal  nods.  Her  deportment,  indeed,  was 
very  modest. 

13 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Now,  confronting  him  in  the  corridor — in  her 
nurselike  dress  and  plain  straw  hat— she  ad- 
dressed him  in  a  rather  low,  even  voice — a  voice 
quite  ladylike — and  the  muscles  of  her  face  were 
perfectly  controlled.  She  said: 

"Say,  what's  the  matter  with  you,  anyhow,  you 
big  stiff?  What  are  you  trying  to  soak  me  for?" 

He  was  completely  disconcerted.  Looking 
down  into  her  brown  eyes  he  perceived  that  she 
was  angry  and  had  no  more  fear  of  him  than  a 
ferret  has  of  a  rat.  She  continued  in  the  same 
even,  ladylike  voice : 

"I'm  going  to  hold  that  job,  and  you  can't  do 
me  out  of  it  by  giving  me  rotten  copy.  You  can 
bet  I  won't  stand  for  it  another  day.  I  don't  want 
to  make  a  row  unless  I  have  to,  so  I'll  give  you  a 
chance  to  wake  up.  Does  it  grind  you  to  see  me 
making  fourteen  dollars  a  week  punching  that 
machine  all  day?  Or  have  you  got  somebody  you 
want  to  work  in  there?  What  ails  you,  anyway? 
A  man  that  has  to  wash  his  face  with  a  currycomb 
can't  do  me." 

Quite  helplessly  he  put  his  hand  to  the  con- 
14 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


temned  beard.  And  then  he  burst  out  laughing — 
for  there  was  something  companionable  in  her 
wrath,  a  sort  of  good-fellowship  in  the  oppro- 
brious terms  she  applied  to  him;  and  the  man,  in 
truth,  hungered  for  fellowship.  He  was  as  lone- 
some as  a  wounded  animal  in  a  hole.  That  was 
their  real  introduction.  Its  violence  not  only 
broke  the  ice,  but  fairly  warmed  the  water.  In- 
deed, about  ten  minutes  later  they  were  walking 
up  La  Salle  Street  together. 

"And  so,"  she  remarked,  looking  thoughtfully 
up  at  him  from  under  her  dark  eyelashes,  "you 
thought  I  was  a  spotter." 

He  had  not  said  so.  She  had  merely  inferred 
it  from  what  he  did  say.  "Spotters  are  not  pop- 
ular, except  at  headquarters,"  he  replied  good- 
naturedly;  "and  a  woman  who  was  a  telegraph 
operator  wouldn't  be  running  that  ticker  machine 
at  fourteen  dollars  a  week  unless  she  had  some- 
thing else  in  view." 

"I  can  receive  pretty  well,"  she  explained,  "but 
I  haven't  learned  to  send  yet.  My  brother-in-law 
is  an  operator.  He's  been  teaching  me  and  coach- 

15 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


ing  me  up  on  that  ticker-machine  job.  You  see, 
he  got  the  job  for  me — as  his  sister.  Maybe  you 
know  him — Jim  Raymond?" 

He  did  not  answer.  It  was  not  convenient  to 
say  whether  he  knew  Jim  Raymond,  for  by  a  sort 
of  free-masonry  among  telegraph  operators  one 
may  be  able  to  trace  another. 

"So  you  want  to  be  a  telegraph  operator?"  he 
said  companionably,  yet  with  a  faint  touch  of 
sarcasm. 

"Oh,  yes,"  she  replied  in  her  demure  way.  "I 
want  to  stub  my  fingers  off,  twelve  hours  a  day, 
for  grub  and  lodging,  and  have  some  fat  assistant 
superintendent  chuck  me  under  the  chin.  That's 
what  I'm  honing  for.  Don't  you  feel  that  way 
about  it  yourself?" 

The  man's  heart  stirred,  as  though  somebody 
had  said  to  the  beaten  under  dog:  "You're  per- 
fectly satisfied  with  this  diet  of  breadcrumbs  and 
cold  potatoes,  aren't  you?  You'll  never,  never 
again  try  to  jump  through  the  pantry  door  and 
grab  a  steak,  will  you — although,  as  you've  been 
noticing,  the  door  isn't  quite  shut?" 

16 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


It  was  brutally  hot  in  the  street.  The  glare 
from  the  stone  flagging  hurt  their  eyes.  Crowds 
of  people  toiled  sweatily  along,  jostling  them. 
Behind  was  the  stifling  operating-room,  with  its 
hard,  idiotic  clatter,  whither  he  would  go  as  soon 
as  he  had  a  bite  to  eat,  and  work  a  commercial 
wire  for  three  hours  to  eke  out  the  eighty  dollars 
a  month  that  he  got  for  working  the  stock  wire. 
Oh,  undoubtedly,  this  was  what  he  wanted !  They 
stopped  on  the  hot,  dirty  cobblestones  of  the 
crossing  to  let  a  big,  bottle-green  automobile  glide 
by.  A  man  and  a  woman  lolled  negligently  on 
the  back  seat.  He  didn't  want  anything  like  that 
himself!  Oh,  no! 

All  the  same,  he  looked  warily  down  at  the 
woman's  trim,  demure  figure  out  of  the  tail  of 
his  eye,  and  talked  of  telegraphy.  He  had  been 
burned  once,  and  was  shy.  She  was  to  take  a 
trolley  car  at  the  corner  of  Monroe  Street,  and 
he  waited  with  her  for  it  to  come  along. 

"I  suppose  it's  better  than  some  other  jobs — 
has  more  opportunities  for  a  bright  young  man," 
she  said.  Her  words  were  innocent  enough,  but 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


a  different  meaning  seemed  to  lurk  in  her  dark 
eyes. 

"I've  never  seen  the  opportunities  myself,"  he 
replied  dryly. 

*  "No?"  she  inquired,  and  gathered  up  her  skirt, 
for  the  car  was  approaching.  "I  supposed — i£ 
you  took  me  for  a  spotter,  and  it  made  you  sore — 
I  supposed  you  must  be  putting  something  over." 

He  laughed  easily.  "Oh,  there's  no  chance 
there  to  put  anything  over!"  he  said.  She  went 
out  to  the  car  and  glanced  back  at  him  quizzically 
over  her  shoulder.  He  laughed  again  and  waved 
his  hat. 

That  was  the  beginning  of  an  odd  sort  of  court- 
ship, in  which  she  was  the  aggressor.  Neither  of 
them  was  thinking  of  matrimony  then.  He  wasn't 
thinking  much  of  gallantry;  nor  she  of  flirting, 
but  already  the  thin  edge  of  an  idea  lay  between 
them.  She  contemplated  it  candidly;  but  the  man, 
as  yet,  pretended  it  wasn't  there. 

It  would  be  hard  to  say  whence  this  idea  came. 
The  man  had  always  been  a  quite  law-abiding 

citizen,  excepting  his  wire-tapping  adventure,  and 

18 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


a  great  many  people  regarded  beating  a  poolroom 
as  not  only  permissible  but  praiseworthy.  One 
of  the  woman's  occupations  had  been  that  of  cash- 
ier in  a  florist's  shop,  and  there  she  had  tapped 
the  till  a  little;  but  the  florist  himself  was  a 
cheat,  and  his  son  tapped  the  till  regularly.  So 
her  conscience  was  clear. 

After  a  while  she  told  him  about  tapping  the 
till — for  they  fell  into  a  way  of  seeing  each  other 
pretty  regularly  outside  of  the  office — going  to 
luncheon  together,  or  to  some  respectable  place 
for  a  chat  over  a  glass  of  beer  after  the  work  was 
done.  He  found  at  once  that,  although  she  per- 
mitted herself  considerable  freedom  of  speech, 
her  conduct  was  always  modest,  and  she  was  very 
strong  on  some  of  the  proprieties.  Indeed,  he 
had  trouble  in  persuading  her  that  a  rather  sad 
little  Italian  restaurant  below  the  Board  of  Trade 
was  perfectly  respectable. 

One  day  she  said  teasingly:  "What  is  it  you're 
putting  over,  there  at  the  office  ?  I  can't  catch  on 
to  it.  Why  don't  you  let  me  in?" 

"Oh,  there's  no  chance  there  to  put  anything 
19 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


over,"  he  replied,  laughing  it  off  as  he  had  done 
before. 

"But  those  quotations  mean  money  in  the 
brokers'  offices  and  bucketshops,  don't  they?"  she 
persisted. 

"What  do  you  know  about  bucketshops?"  he 
said,  taking  her  half-joking  tone. 

"I  suppose,"  she  replied,  "you  guessed  from 
my  conversation  that  I.  was  brought  up  in  a  con- 
vent. But  I  wasn't.  I've  lived  in  this  mussy 
little  burg  all  my  life.  Born  right  over  here  on 
Desplaines  Street.  About  the  bucketshop,"  she 
continued,  "when  my  florist  failed  I  quit  with  two 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars — part  mine,  part  his. 
Like  a  dutiful  child  I  trotted  over  to  a  ladies' 
bucketshop  on  Sherman  Street  with  it.  I  had  a 
hot  tip  from  good  old  Jim  Raymond,  and  I 
thought  I  was  going  to  make  a  home  run ;  but  they 
had  me  fanned  out  before  I  could  grasp  the  bat. 
I've  had  sort  of  rotten  luck,"  she  added,  and 
though  she  spoke  jestingly  her  eyes  darkened. 

"Married,  I  suppose?"  he  asked  sympathet- 
ically. 

20 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


"Oh,  sure,"  she  replied  promptly.  "I 
couldn't  have  missed  that  any  more  than  a  man 
sneaking  home  with  a  jag  could  miss  falling  over 
the  piano  lamp.  Married  at  twenty — and  off  and 
on  for  the  next  five  years.  It's  off  for  keeps  now. 
After  five  years  of  my  kind  of  marriage  any  smart 
woman  ought  to  be  able  to  graduate." 

"Yes,  you've  had  poor  luck,"  he  said  gravely. 

"I  judge,"  she  replied  rather  casually,  "there's 
one  member  of  the  Roth  family  that  knows  a 
lemon  when  he  sees  it." 

"You  can  judge  better,"  he  answered,  "when  I 
tell  you  my  name  isn't  Roth.  My  name  is  John 
Pound."  At  once  his  heart  stirred  as  though 
something  had  pricked  it,  and  he  bottled  himself 
up  again.  By  that  time  she  was  familiar  with 
the  bottling  process.  He  would  move  only  an 
inch  at  a  time.  So  she  talked  more  about  her- 
self. 

"Father's  regular  occupations  were  belonging 
to  the  union,  supporting  the  Democratic  party, 
losing  his  job  and  nursing  a  grouch,"  she  said. 

"He  was  bully  at  all  of  them;  but  the  family's 

21 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


long  suit  was  vi-cissitudes.  I  went  to  work  when 
I  was  twelve — a  bright  little  cash-girl.  After  that, 
when  father  had  a  job  I  went  to  school — once  for 
nearly  three  years  at  a  stretch.  Then  we  came  in 
for  a  whole  collection  of  vi-cissitudes,  and  I  went 
to  work  again.  My  own  happy  home  had  vi-cis- 
situdes where  other  homes  have  carpets  and  food. 
But  my  brother-in-law  is  all  right — honest  as  the 
day  is  long  and  twice  as  poor.  For  a  man  that 
never  had  any  money,  Jim  has  lost  more  on  more 
fool  things  than  anybody  living.  But  he's  a  good 
fellow." 

He  responded  slowly  to  her  candor;  did  not 
even  mention  where  he  lodged,  or  whether  he 
was  married  or  single.  He  was  reticent,  not 
because  he  had  been  wicked,  but  because  he  had 
been  so  mortifyingly  ineffectual.  He  had  been 
brought  up,  in  fact,  in  a  country  town  in  Illinois. 
His  mother  was  a  widow  in  straitened  circum- 
stances. He  still  resented,  with  dogged  bitter- 
ness, that  she  had  been  employed  as  cook  in  the 
village  hotel.  He  quit  school  early  and  deviled 
in  one  of  the  local  weekly  newspaper  offices  for  a 

22 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


while.  Presently,  he  learned  telegraphy.  At 
twenty-one,  the  offer  of  a  job  at  St.  Louis  opened 
prospects  which  he  deemed  fairly  elysian.  He 
saved  his  money  carefully  and  then — encouraged 
by  some  hopeful  young  speculators  in  the  office — 
invested  it  in  a  get-rich-quick  scheme,  where  it 
instantly  vanished.  After  that  he  tempted  For- 
tune with  many  tiny  baits — at  faro,  in  pool  rooms 
and  bucketshops — but  in  the  end  she  always  swal- 
lowed the  bait  and  left  him  "broke."  He  was 
forced  to  the  conclusion  that,  to  win,  a  fellow 
must  play  the  game  from  the  inside,  and  so,  in 
due  time,  he  embarked  in  the  wire-tapping  enter- 
prise. That  promised  splendidly  for  a  while — 
and  then  his  pals  left  him  holding  the  empty  bag, 
as  usual.  There  was  nothing  in  all  this  that  he 
cared  to  tell  anybody — precisely  because  all  this 
implied  something  which  he  profoundly  disbe- 
lieved. It  implied  that  he  was  incompetent,  a 
mere  sucker ;  and  he  still  had  the  feeling  of  ability. 
Now,  he  gathered  from  this  alert,  dark-eyed  wom- 
an that  she  had  the  same  feeling  about  him.  She 
paid  him  no  open  compliments;  was  likelier  to 

23 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


call  him  a  "lobster."  All  the  same,  her  attitude 
toward  his  mind  was  subtly  admiring. 

Toward  his  person  she  seemed  to  have  scarcely 
any  attitude.  They  met  in  a  sexless  sort  of  way 
— went  to  luncheon  together,  or,  sometimes,  had 
a  talk  in  the  afternoon  when  their  work  was  done. 
She  told  him  where  she  lived,  on  the  West  Side. 

"No  place  for  company,"  she  added,  frankly. 
"My  younger  sister  and  I  have  a  couple  of  taggy 
rooms  and  do  light  housekeeping — mighty  light. 
May's  had  sort  of  poor  luck,  too.  She  isn't  gritty 
like  me,  so  it  was  harder  for  her."  She  ruminated 
a  moment,  apparently  looking  some  distance 
back. 

"Well,"  she  said,  soberly,  "there's  no  use  quar- 
reling with  the  umpire.  If  he  says  you're  out, 
you're  out  all  right.  It  took  me  quite  a  while  to 
learn  that.  Being  reasonable  never  was  father's 
long  suit.  He  went  in  more  for  temper.  And 
mother  was  always  scared  half  out  of  her  wits — 
just  giving  in,  without  any  more  spine  than  a  mop, 
to  whatever  he  said  or  did.  It  used  to  make  me 

crazy.    I  suppose  I  had  my  small  cocoanut  batted 

24 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


as  far  as  from  here  to  the  North  Pole  before  I 
got  it  fully  settled  in  my  mind  that,  no  matter  how 
unreasonable  he  was,  he  was  stronger  than  me 
and  could  lick  me.  It  was  a  fine  lesson — after  I 
got  my  brains  sifted  back  into  their  right  place. 
Since  I  learned  it,  I've  usually  managed  to  keep 
my  mouth  shut — unless  I  had  an  ax  handy." 

In  this  odd  way  of  hers,  she  really  touched  the 
man's  sympathy.  She  seemed  to  him  a  very 
courageous  creature,  who  had  fought  against  un- 
fair odds,  and  lost,  and  still  had  her  courage  un- 
dimmed.  It  was  hard  to  resist,  very  long,  her 
companionable  candor.  He  was  desperately  lone- 
some, and  an  idea  tacitly  lay  between  them. 

So  the  time  came  when  he  explained  to  her  the 
operation  of  wire-tapping.  He  made  a  rough 
little  diagram  on  the  back  of  an  envelope  so  she 
would  understand  it  better.  Here  was  the  race- 
track. This  long  line  was  the  wire  from  the  track 
to  Chicago.  Here  was  where  the  wire-tappers 
cut  the  wire  in  two — above  some  loft,  or,  perhaps, 
above  a  copse  of  trees  or  a  cornfield  where  the 
illicit  operators  sat  hidden  with  their  instru- 

25 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


ments  on  an  upturned  shoe-box.  As  the  report 
of  the  race  came  over  the  wire  these  operators 
took  it  off  and  held  it  back  until  they  had  the 
name  of  the  winning  horse.  Then,  by  a  prear- 
ranged code,  they  flashed  that  name  to  their  con- 
federates who  were  posted  in  the  poolrooms. 
The  confederates  at  once  bet  on  the  horse  that 
had  already  won.  When  the  illicit  operators 
sent  in  the  delayed  report  they  took  their  winnings 
and  departed. 

Both  of  them  were  bending  over  the  table  in  the 
Italian  place,  the  rough  diagram  between  them. 
"I've  known  of  twenty  thousand  dollars  being 
cleaned  up  on  one  race,"  he  said. 

As  he  glanced  up  her  full,  level  look  fell  into 
his  eyes.  "Why  did  you  quit  it?"  she  asked  with 
sympathy. 

He  smiled  a  little,  ungenially.  "They  got  on 
to  us.  There  was  trouble.  The  rest  of  the  gang 
skipped  out  and  left  me  to  hold  the  bag.  I'm 
liable  to  arrest  now." 

She  had  felt  sure  something  like  that  had  hap- 
pened. Still  sympathetically  she  said:  "But 

26 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


they  got  more  than  your  money — they  got  your 
nerve.  You're  all  bottled  up." 

He  had  rather  known  that  before — they  had 
got  his  nerve ;  he  was  cowed  and  bottled  up.  But 
someway,  as  she  said  it,  looking  into  his  eyes,  it 
came  home  to  him  with  force.  Also,  it  came  to 
him  that  her  nerve  had  been  inspiring  him;  that 
she  had  been  helping  him  up  out  of  the  hole  in 
which  he  skulked  a  hurt  animal.  After  that  they 
got  on  faster. 

A  few  days  later  he  was  again  marking  on  the 
back  of  an  envelope  for  her.  "You've  noticed," 
he  said,  speaking  in  a  low  tone,  "that  there  are  a 
lot  of  things  on  the  ticker  tape  besides  the  quota- 
tions proper.  For  example" — he  wrote  it  on  the 
envelope — "you'll  see  this:  'No  Pa  135.'  That 
means  the  operator  has  sent  out  a  quotation  of 
135  on  Pennsylvania  Railroad  stock,  but  it  was  a 
mistake,  so  now  he  sends  'No  Pa  135'  to  cancel 
the  mistake.  Or  you'll  see  'Last  E  18.'  That 
means  there  has  been  confusion  somewhere  as  to 
the  last  quotation  on  Erie,  so  the  last  quotation  is 

repeated.     Or  you'll  see   'Cen  s.    129.'     That 

27 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


means,  'New  York  Central  has  sold  at  129' — a 
quotation  at  that  price  on  New  York  Central  has 
been  overlooked,  and  it  is  now  sent  over  the  tape 
out  of  the  regular  order  in  which  it  occurred. 
You  understand?" 

She  slowly  nodded  her  head.  "I  see.  You 
mean  you  could  send  out  things  of  that  sort  over 
the  tape  to  suit  yourself."  Her  voice,  like  his, 
was  perfectly  steady,  yet  pitched  low;  her  eyes, 
like  his,  were  full  of  meaning — for  it  was  a  good 
deal  like  tiptoeing  through  a  room  by  the  thin 
ray  of  a  dark  lantern  toward  a  safe  they  were 
about  to  crack. 

"Now,  take  some  stock  that  is  rather  inactive 
at  present,"  he  went  on  under  his  breath.  "Let 
us  say,  Wabash  preferred.  Some  days  there  may 
not  be  a  trade  in  it  for  an  hour  or  more;  other 
days  there  may  be  quite  a  little  spurt  of  trading 
in  it.  Suppose  it  has  sold  at  1 8 ;  that  is  the  last 
quotation — the  last  price  the  bucketshops  have. 
Suppose,  then,  it  runs  into  one  of  those  occasional 
spurts  of  activity.  I  receive  from  New  York  a 

quotation  of  18^'  on  Wabash  preferred.     But, 

28 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


unfortunately,  I'm  sort  of  sleepy;  I  neglect  to 
write  it  down ;  it  doesn't  go  out  on  the  ticker  tape 
at  all,  so  the  bucketshops  don't  get  it.  They're 
still  trading  in  Wabash  preferred  at  18.  Then  I 
get  from  New  York  sales  of  Wabash  preferred  at 
1 8%,  18^.  But  I'm  still  sleepy;  I  neglect  to 
send  them  out.  A  little  later  I  get  a  sale  at  18^. 
Then  I  send  out  something  like  this:  'WZ  s.  18 
BO  62  A  27  Last  E  18.'  An  ordinary  person 
would  take  that  to  mean  simply:  'Wabash  pre- 
ferred has  sold  at  18;  Baltimore  and  Ohio  sells  at 
62 ;  Atchison  sells  at  27 ;  the  last  quotation  on 
Erie  was  18.'  But  if  you  were  watching  that  tape 
you  would  see  'Wabash  preferred  has  sold,'  fol- 
lowed by  two  commonplace  quotations — any  two, 
no  matter  what — and  then  followed  by  'The  last 
quotation  on  Erie  was'  so  and  so.  Seeing  that 
combination  on  the  tape  you  would  at  once  guess 
that  I  had  been  sleepy  about  Wabash  preferred; 
that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  higher  quotations  had 
come  in,  but  I  had  neglected  to  send  them  out.  So 
you  would  presently  saunter  over  to  the  counter 

and  buy  a  hundred  shares  of  Wabash  preferred 

29 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


at  1 8 — that  is,  you  would  bet  with  the  bucketshop 
that  Wabash  preferred  was  going  to  sell  higher 
than  1 8.  And  a  little  later  I  would  sort  of  wake 
up  and  remember  those  other  quotations  on  Wa- 
bash preferred  and  begin  sending  them  out.  Pres- 
ently, therefore,  the  bucketshop  would  get  a  quo- 
tation of  1 8^6  on  Wabash  preferred;  then  i8j4, 
1 8 21$  and  183/3.  And  you  would  have  won  fifty 
dollars,  less  the  commission  of  twenty-five  dollars 
to  the  bucketshop.  With  only  three  symbols,  or 
code  words,  you  know,  a  good  many  combinations 
can  be  made — as  to  buy  such  and  such  a  stock,  to 
sell  such  and  such  a  stock,  to  close  your  trade." 

"I  can  see  that,"  she  replied  thoughtfully. 
"But" — she  seemed,  someway,  rather  disap- 
pointed— "on  that  Wabash  preferred  that  you 
mentioned  we  would  make  only  twenty-five  dollars, 
and  we'd  have  to  wait  for  our  opportunity — wait 
until  the  market  was  right — before  we  could  make 
even  that." 

"Of  course,  we  could  take  a  jimmy  or  a  sand- 
bag and  make  it  faster,"  he  replied  dryly;  "but 
the  risk  would  be  much  greater.  If  we  made 

30 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


only  a  couple  of  hundred  dollars  in  a  week  it 
would  be  a  little  better  than  telegraph  salaries, 
wouldn't  it?" 

"Oh,  yes,  that's  true,"  she  said,  brightening. 
"And  then,"  she  added,  brightening  still  more, 
"as  we  got  more  money  to  operate  with  we  could 
win  more." 

He  put  the  envelope  in  his  pocket.  "So  far  as  I 
know,"  he  observed  still  more  dryly,  "we  haven't 
got  any  money  at  all  to  operate  with.  Of  course, 
we  can't  do  anything  without  some  money." 

She  dropped  back  in  the  chair,  quite  overcast. 
"I  suppose  we  couldn't  even  go  out  and  rob  a 
bank  without  some  money  to  begin  on,"  she  said. 
"But  see  here :  I  can  dig  up  something.  I've  got 
a  little  jewelry.  I  can  raise  fifty  dollars.  We 
can  begin  with  that." 

Her  determination  encouraged  him.  "Well,  I 
could  dig  up  fifty,"  he  said.  "And  then,  prob- 
ably, I  could  raise  another  hundred  from  a  loan 
shark.  Sharks  like  telegraph  operators — they're 
such  suckers." 

"Sure !"  she  replied  eagerly.    "And  what's  the 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


matter  with  my  borrowing  fifty  from  a  shark? 
I'm  an  'honest  salaried  people'  like  they  advertise 
for.  And  there,  do  you  see,  we'd  be  a  hundred 
and  fifty  ahead  right  away,  for  we'd  let  the 
sharks  whistle  for  their  money!" 

He  laughed.  Her  courage  inspired  him;  and 
his  nerves  tingled  as  pleasantly  as  those  of  a 
prisoner  who  notices  that  the  guard  has  left  a 
door  unlocked.  To  have  money!  It  was  like  a 
caged  animal  looking  through  the  bars  at  the 
great,  open  world. 

Next  day  she  informed  the  office  manager  that 
she  had  another  job  and  would  leave  Saturday. 
The  intervening  leisure  they  devoted  to  raising 
the  capital  for  their  enterprise  and  to  devising 
and  studying  a  secret  code  made  up  of  innocent- 
looking  notations  on  the  ticker  tape.  Saturday 
afternoon,  in  a  little  German  garden  on  the  North 
Side,  they  went  over  it  again  carefully. 

Presently  the  man  said  gravely,  even  gently: 
"You  know,  there's  some  risk  in  this  for  you.  Of 
course,  it  isn't  exactly  a  nice  thing  for  a  man  to 
let  a  woman  in  for  a  risk  of  that  sort."  That 

32 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


unpleasant  thought  had  been  in  his  mind  for  some 
time.  He  was  going  into  action  with  a  female 
for  his  companion  in  arms,  wholly  sharing  the 
danger.  He  felt  a  certain  loathness  and  humilia- 
tion over  so  unchivalrous  a  thing. 

"It's  just  my  good  luck,  Johnny,"  she  replied 
soberly.  "If  you  hadn't  been  sort  of  down  on 
your  luck  and  underdoggy  I'd  never  have  got  the 
chance  to  go  in  with  you.  You're  doing  me  a 
favor  that  not  many  men  would  do.  Most  men 
are  too  conceited  to  give  a  woman  a  chance  at 
the  bat." 

With  this  little  intimate  and  comradely  pas- 
sage they  let  that  side  of  the  matter  drop. 

"But  there's  one  thing  to  remember,"  he  cau- 
tioned. "You  will  have  to  lose  now  and  then — 
I  mean,  just  go  in  and  buy  or  sell  blind,  without 
any  signal  from  me.  If  you  won  every  time 
they'd  grow  suspicious  and  get  on  to  us.  To  win 
on  a  signal  twice  and  then  take  your  chances  the 
third  time  would  be  a  good  rule." 

"I  see,"  she  replied.  But  she  wasn't  thinking 
very  much  about  the  cautionary  advice.  She  was 

33 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


calculating  how  long  it  would  take,  if  they  doubled 
their  stakes,  to  get  ten  thousand  dollars  apiece  \ 

About  ten  o'clock  Monday  morning  Emma  was 
walking  briskly  down  Jackson  Boulevard.  She 
was  dressed  as  plainly  as  when  she  had  been  a 
mere  humble  employee  of  the  telegraph  company, 
although  she  was  now  a  capitalist  with  three  hun- 
dred dollars  in  her  handbag.  She  had  chosen 
that  route  in  order  to  pass  the  Western  Union 
Telegraph  Company's  tall,  red  office-building. 
And,  passing  it,  she  glanced  up  at  its  towering 
facade  and  exulted  over  it.  No  more  thumping 
a  ticker  machine  at  fourteen  per  for  her!  She 
turned  into  Sherman  Street  and  entered  a  certain 
dingy  building  as  one  who  knew  the  way.  Going 
up  the  broad  stairs  her  heart,  undoubtedly,  beat 
faster.  He  had  told  her  it  was  rather  risky,  and 
she  would  have  known  that  without  being  told. 
But  her  hand  was  perfectly  steady;  there  was  no 
quailing  in  her  mind.  She  had  had  a  great  plenty 
of  being  the  goat. 

On  the  second  floor,  at  the  right-hand  side  of 
the  corridor,  in  front,  there  was  a  door  with  a 

34 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


sign  on  the  ground-glass  panel  reading:  "Hil- 
pricht  &  Co.,  Stocks,  Bonds,  Grain."  On  the 
left-hand  side  of  the  corridor,  at  the  rear,  the 
panel  of  another  door  had  the  sign:  "Women's 
Commission  Company."  Both  establishments 
catered  especially  to  women.  She  had  lost  money 
in  both,  but  she  chose  Hilpricht  &  Co.  first. 

The  door  opened  to  a  room  about  thirty  feet 
square.  Over  in  a  corner  a  little  private  office, 
having  the  sign  "Manager"  above  the  entrance, 
was  partitioned  off  with  rosewood  and  plate  glass. 
A  rosewood  counter,  with  a  plate-glass  screen 
above  it,  extended  along  that  side  of  the  room. 
The  other  side  was  partly  taken  up  with  a  large 
blackboard.  At  the  end  of  the  blackboard,  in  the 
corner  by  one  of  the  windows,  stood  a  ticker.  A 
melancholy-looking  youth,  in  a  belted  blue  blouse 
the  worse  for  wear,  tore  off  six  or  seven  inches  of 
the  ticker  tape,  walked  across  in  front  of  the 
blackboard  and  chalked  up  the  quotations  from 
the  piece  of  tape;  then  he  walked  back,  stuck 
that  piece  of  tape  on  a  slim  steel  spindle  and  tore 
off  a  fresh  piece.  The  room  looked  clean.  A 
>  35 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


large  domestic  rug  on  the  floor  was  unsoiled. 
Upon  the  rug,  between  the  counter  and  the  black- 
board, eighteen  neat  willow  rocking-chairs  stood 
in  two  rows.  More  than  half  of  the  chairs  were 
occupied,  and  by  women. 

Three,  who  seemed  of  a  party,  sat  over  by  the 
window  in  the  front  row.  They  were  well  dressed 
and  had,  generally,  the  appearance  of  respectable, 
well-to-do  matrons.  They  kept  up  a  steady  con- 
versation among  themselves.  Next  them  sat  an 
elderly  lady,  very  skinny  and  leathery,  in  a  shape- 
less black  dress.  She  had  taken  off  a  bedraggled 
hat  and  laid  it  on  her  bony  knees.  Her  sparse 
hair  was  drawn  straight  back  into  a  doughnut  at 
the  top  of  her  head.  She  had  a  piece  of  stout 
string,  a  yard  long,  and  as  her  eyes  held  unwaver- 
ingly to  the  blackboard  she  slowly  wound  this 
string,  first  on  one  thumb,  then  on  the  other. 
iWhen  a  thumb  was  bare  one  could  see  creases  in 
it  like  the  threads  of  a  screw,  made  by  innumer- 
able windings  of  the  bit  of  string.  There  were 
two  vacant  chairs;  then  came  a  fat  woman  of  fifty, 
sadly  bleached  and  painted,  wearing  a  costly  lace 

36 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


dress,  her  fingers  stiff  with  rings.  She  was  talk- 
ing volubly  to  a  much  younger  and  fairer  com- 
panion, who  seemed  bored.  At  the  end  of  the 
back  row  a  neat,  slim  little  woman  of  forty  sat  all 
alone  with  a  light  veil  over  her  face,  through 
which  her  anxious  eyes  shone. 

To  the  newcomer  this  spectacle  was  sufficiently 
familiar.  She  simply  took  it  in  with  a  demure 
turn  of  her  dark  eyes,  and  stood  examining  the 
quotations  to  get  the  general  run  of  the  market. 
When  she  stepped  in  the  manager  had  looked  up 
from  his  desk  in  the  private  office.  Now  he  came 
forward,  smiling  urbanely — a  notably  heavy 
young  man,  with  apple-red,  overhanging  chops 
and  very  large  pale-blue  eyes.  He  was  very  fash- 
ionably dressed  and  wore  a  rosebud  in  his  button- 
hole. 

"Good-morning,  Mrs.  Raymond,"  he  said 
affably,  in  the  husky  voice  of  a  hard  drinker,  ex- 
tending a  pudgy  white  hand. 

She  shook  hands  with  him  demurely,  murmur- 
ing: "Good-morning,  Mr.  Dallam." 

It  was  part  of  his  job  to  remember  all  the 
37 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


customers  and  try  to  make  them  feel  at  home. 
"Glad  to  see  you  again,"  he  remarked  hospitably. 
He  was,  in  fact,  recalling  just  how  much  she  lost 
the  last  time  and  wondering  if  she  had  as  much 
to  lose  again.  He  talked  to  her  about  the  market 
in  a  grave,  yet  friendly  and  confidential  manner, 
calling  her  attention  to  two  or  three  things  which 
he  thought  she  could  make  some  money  on.  As 
she  listened  to  this  serious,  confidential  advice  and 
modestly  surveyed  Mr.  Dallam's  expansive  coun- 
tenance she  was  thinking:  "What  a  sucker  I 
was  before !" 

When  Dallam  strolled  away  with  his  air  of 
ponderous  gallantry  to  encourage  the  slim,  veiled 
little  woman  with  a  few  confidential  words,  Mrs. 
Raymond  looked  around  at  the  rosewood  counter. 
She  seldom  smiled,  but  now  her  lips  parted  and 
her  eyes  sparkled.  For  a  moment  she  stood 
silently  smiling  and  sparkling  at  the  counter.  And 
on  the  other  side  of  the  counter  a  youth  smiled 
at  her.  He  was  hardly  as  old  as  herself,  slender 
and  very  blond.  His  smooth  cheeks  were  pink 
and  white,  and  yellow  hair  curled  over  his  fair 

38 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


brow.  She  went  over  to  the  counter  and  put  her 
hand  through  the  wicket,  fairly  laughing.  "How 
are  you,  Tommy?"  she  said. 

On  her  first  adventure  in  the  bucketshop  this 
youth  had  told  her  frankly  that  she  was  a  sucker 
and  would  lose  all  her  money.  As  she  had  been 
a  sucker  and  lost  all  her  money,  she  felt  fond  of 
Tommy. 

"Got  some  more  burning  your  pocket?"  he 
jeered. 

She  opened  her  handbag  and  showed  him  a  roll 
of  bills,  fairly  laughing  again.  She  was  still  smil- 
ing a  little  to  herself  over  Tommy  as  she  loitered 
up  to  the  ticker  and  glanced  over  the  last  few 
pieces  of  the  tape  that  the  young  man  had  stuck 
on  the  spindle.  Nothing  yet ;  but  the  market  had 
been  open  only  a  little  over  an  hour.  She  looked 
out  of  the  window;  drifted  over  and  joshed 
Tommy  a  bit;  stood  examining  the  blackboard; 
received  more  confidential  advice  from  the  man- 
ager. But  at  intervals  she  gravitated  back  to 
the  ticker.  Nothing  that  the  busy  little  machine 
printed  on  its  endless  ribbon  escaped  her  eye. 

39 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


So  gravitating — it  was  twenty-one  minutes  past 
ten — her  heart  leaped.  The  signal  was  just  com- 
ing out  on  the  tape :  "BRTs.  66  EZ  24^4."  She 
watched  that  group  of  symbols  slip  along  as  the 
ribbon  unwound,  and  her  heart  beat  fast.  Be- 
hind them  she  fairly  saw  the  big,  sprawling  man 
in  his  shirt  sleeves,  in  the  hot  office,  steadily  mark- 
ing the  slips  of  white  paper.  She  felt  a  certain 
glow  of  admiration,  even  of  a  sort  of  affection, 
for  her  partner.  "The  good  soldier  man  is  right 
on  the  job  1"  she  said  to  herself. 

Cautious  Pound  had  told  her  they  shouldn't  put 
up  any  money  the  first  day  or  so,  but  merely 
try  out  their  system  to  see  that  it  worked  per- 
fectly. 

Watching  the  symbols  slide  along  her  courage 
urged  her  on.  What  was  the  use  of  waiting? 
She  walked  over  to  the  wicket,  opened  her  hand- 
bag and  laid  four  crisp  fifty-dollar  bills  on  the 
counter.  "I'll  buy  a  hundred  Erie  seconds  at 
twenty-four  and  three-quarters,  Tommy,"  she 
said,  smiling  at  him. 

Tommy  shook  his  blond  head  as  though  giving 
40 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


her  up ;  verified  the  quotation  and  gave  her  a  little 
slip  certifying  the  purchase. 

When  the  quotations  were  finished  that  day 
Pound  slipped  on  his  coat  and  walked  rapidly — 
in  spite  of  the  heat — down  to  the  little  Italian 
place.  Emma  was  sitting  at  a  table  in  the  corner, 
waiting  for  him.  He  seemed  rather  nervous. 

"I've  been  thinking  our  game  over,  Emma," 
he  began  abruptly  and  uneasily.  He  hadn't  called 
her  Emma  before. 

There  was  a  slip  of  colored  paper  in  her  hand. 
She  unfolded  it  and  laid  it  in  front  of  him — a 
check  signed  by  Hilpricht  &  Co.  "We're  sixty- 
two  dollars  and  a  half  ahead  of  the  game  today, 
Johnny!"  she  said  gayly. 

He  looked  at  the  slip  of  paper  with  some  con- 
fusion, then  picked  it  up;  finally,  he  burst  out 
laughing. 

"You  know — I  got  cold  feet — thinking  of  you," 
he  said  with  embarrassed  candor.  "After  all, 
getting  a  woman  into  a  mess  of  this  kind — if  there 
should  be  a  mess " 

She  smiled  quizzically.  "I  somehow  had  a 
41 


TH%  LOSING  GAME 


sort  of  suspicion  you  might,  so  I  hopped  right  in," 
she  said.  "And  now,  Johnny,  don't  you  ever 
think  of  me  when  your  feet  are  cold.  Think  of 
Florida  or  a  soapstone." 

There  was  no  equivocating  after  that — except 
in  one  particular.  He  kept  telling  her  that  she 
must  lose  now  and  then,  or,  at  least,  go  in  blind 
and  take  her  chances.  For  if  she  won  every  time 
the  bucketshop  people  would  grow  suspicious,  and 
if  they  grew  suspicious  they  would  presently  trace 
out  the  signals.  He  insisted  upon  this  point. 
Twice,  indeed,  she  did  place  her  money  without 
a  signal  from  him.  The  first  time  she  came  out 
even.  But  the  second  time  she  stuck  to  her  bad 
trade  two  days  and  lost  a  hundred  and  fifty  dol- 
lars. After  that  she  simply  couldn't  bring  her- 
self to  do  it.  She  would  sort  of  resolve  to — next 
day.  But  when  it  came  to  the  point  of  putting  up 
two  hundred  dollars  in  good  money  and  taking  the 
chance  of  losing  it  her  heart  always  failed  her. 
So  she  lied  to  him  about  it — telling  him  she  had 
made  such  and  such  deals  without  a  signal  when 

she  hadn't. 

42 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


She  surveyed  fat,  hoarse  Dallam  with  his  big, 
pale-blue  eyes,  and  said  to  herself:  "What's  the 
use  of  throwing  away  money  on  him ;  he's  a  fool, 
anyhow."  And  she  took  other  precautions — that 
is,  she  traded  sometimes  in  Hilpricht's  and  some- 
times in  the  Woman's  Commission  Company; 
sometimes  she  would  get  the  signal  on  the  tape  in 
one  office  and  go  into  the  other  to  make  the  trade. 
She  didn't  know  that  Hilpricht  &  Co.  and  the 
Woman's  Commission  Company  were  really  one 
concern,  organized  on  the  principle  that  a  woman 
will  never  buy  anything  unless  she  sees  it  in  two 
different  shops. 

One  day,  early  in  September,  she  sauntered  into 
Hilpricht's  with  her  usual  plain,  neat  dress  and 
demure  air.  Dallam  was  standing  over  by  his 
private  office.  A  middle-aged  man  with  a  gray 
mustache  and  brown  hat,  indifferently  dressed, 
was  standing  beside  him.  She  thought  that  Dal- 
lam glanced  at  this  man  significantly,  yet  it  made 
no  particular  impression  upon  her. 

She  went  over  to  the  ticker,  pursuing  her  usual 
tactics  of  moving  about  more  or  less,  but  always 

43 


keeping  run  of  the  tape.  Presently  she  got  a  sig- 
nal to  buy  Colorado  Fuel  and  Iron.  As  she 
turned  away  from  the  ticker  and  approached  the 
counter  she  again  noticed  the  stranger  standing 
over  by  Dallam's  door.  Their  glances  met — hers 
veiled  by  dark  eyelashes.  The  man's  look  gave 
her  a  subtle  little  chill — something  like  a  com- 
pelling hand  laid  on  her  shoulder.  Nevertheless, 
she  stepped  to  the  wicket  and  opened  her  hand- 
bag. Then  she  observed  that  Tommy  looked 
very  unhappy.  His  bright  blue  eyes  were  down- 
cast, and  he  kept  on  with  his  work  as  though  he 
didn't  see  her.  She  was  well  enough  aware  that 
Tommy  was  fond  of  her;  and  she  was  instantly 
suspicious. 

"Tommy,"  she  said  softly,  "who  is  that  guy 
over  there?" 

Tommy  glanced  up,  deeply  troubled.  "Skip !" 
he  murmured.  "They're  after  you." 

"It's  all  right,  honey;  don't  be  scared,"  she 
murmured  back.  "I'll  buy  twenty  shares  of 
Union  Pacific."  She  laid  the  money  on  the 
counter. 

44 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Taking  the  slip  that  certified  the  purchase  she 
sauntered  away  a  little,  and  could  hardly  help 
grinning  when  she  saw  Dallam  step  behind  the 
counter,  evidently  to  find  out  what  she  had  bought. 
A  moment  later  the  stranger  went  over  and  exam- 
ined the  tape.  Of  course,  he  found  upon  it  no 
suspicious  signal  in  approximation  with  Union 
Pacific.  In  fact,  at  the  next  quotation  Union  Pa- 
cific was  lower.  She  waited  ten  minutes,  then 
strolled  leisurely  out  of  the  office. 

She  knew  well  enough  that  an  expert,  once  on 
the  right  trail,  could  soon  unravel  their  code — 
tracing  out  the  signals  and  the  withheld  quota- 
tions. She  guessed  that  the  stranger  was  a 
detective  from  the  headquarters  of  the  telegraph 
company.  It  looked  decidedly  as  though  their 
game  was  up.  Also,  it  looked  rather  dubious  for 
one  John  Pound,  who  called  himself  Roth.  If 
they  were  watching  her,  very  likely  they  were 
watching  him,  too.  Probably  he  would,  before 
long,  hold  out  some  more  quotations — with  un- 
pleasant consequences. 

Now,  she  had  in  her  handbag  and  in  the  bank 
45 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


to  her  credit  a  little  over  thirteen  hundred  dol- 
lars— the  partnership's  capital.  That  was  quite 
a  sum  for  one  person — especially  for  one  female 
person.  But  divided  by  two  it  didn't  amount  to 
much.  Moreover,  they  might  have  already 
nabbed  Pound  on  the  Colorado  Fuel  and  Iron 
quotation  which  he  had  withheld;  and  if  she  went 
to  his  assistance  she  might  simply  get  nabbed  her- 
self. With  this  thought  very  acutely  in  mind,  she 
halted  at  the  foot  of  the  dingy  stairs,  opened  her 
handbag  and  peered  lingeringly  in  at  the  nice 
crisp  bills.  She  wanted  them  very  much  indeed. 


46 


CHAPTER  II 

TWO   HEARTS  THAT  BEAT  REXFORD  AS  ONE 

STANDING  in  the  dingy  hall,  Emma  peered 
lingeringly  at  the  neat  little  roll  of  fifty- 
dollar  bills  nestling  in  her  handbag.    She 
felt  a  personal  affection  for  them.     To  divide 
them  with  Pound  seemed  a  tragedy,  like  breaking 
up  a  happy  family. 

But  someway  she  had  an  instinctive  faith  that 
Pound  was  going  to  turn  out  a  winner,  and  she 
had  not  gone  into  this  game  to  quit  with  a  mere 
thirteen  hundred  dollars. 

She  could  not  reach  Pound  by  telephone.  !An 
ordinary  messenger  might  fall  into  the  wrong 
hands.  Yet,  if  spotters  were  watching  him,  he 
might  at  any  moment  hold  out  a  quotation  and 
be  caught  at  it.  So  she  took  the  slip  showing  her 
purchase  of  Union  Pacific,  put  it  against  the  grimy 
wall  and  scribbled  on  its  back,  "Spotters.  They're 
on  to  us.  Look  out."  Then  she  marched  briskly 

47 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


to  the  telegraph  building,  went  up  to  the  room 
where  he  was  at  work,  and  silently  thrust  the 
message  under  his  nose.  He  looked  at  it,  at  her, 
nodded,  and  went  on  with  his  work,  while  she 
left  the  office  as  rapidly  as  she  had  entered  it. 

The  game  was  up,  then.  Once  more  he  was 
merely  a  telegraph  operator  and  she  a  young 
woman  out  of  a  job.  For  a  fortnight  they  re- 
mained in  that  unpleasant  position.  Then  Pound 
was  offered  another  situation.  He  explained  it 
to  her  in  the  Italian  restaurant. 

"The  man's  name  is  Rexford,"  he  said.  "He 
looks  like  a  hog.  He  wants  me  because  he  thinks 
he  can  get  me  cheap.  A  bucketshop  usually  pays 
an  operator  forty  or  fifty  per  cent,  more  than  the 
telegraph  company  does.  But  Rexford  don't  pro- 
pose to  do  anything  reckless  like  that.  He  offers 
me  an  advance  of  ten  dollars  a  month.  He's 
going  out  to  Omaha  to  open  a  bucketshop,  and 
then  he's  going  to  have  half  a  dozen  other  shops 
out  in  the  state — at  Fremont,  Hastings,  Grand 
Island  and  so  on.  Those  other  shops  are  going 

to  be  run  as  though  they  were  independent  con- 

48 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


cerns.  I  suppose  his  idea  is,  if  the  customers  of 
one  shop  make  a  great  big  winning,  he'll  let  that 
shop  fail  and  so  beat  the  customers  out  of  their 
money.  I'm  going  to  handle  the  quotations  for 
him — send  them  out,  from  Omaha,  over  his  pri- 
vate wire  to  Fremont,  Hastings  and  so  on." 

His  round,  gray  eyes  twinkled  mildly,  and  he 
was  grinning  behind  his  beard  like  a  man  in  high 
good  humor. 

"You  see,"  he  explained  dryly,  "there  are  no 
tickers  in  those  country  towns — nothing  to  check 
up  the  quotations  by,  so  I  can  send  'em  out  a  good 
deal  as  I  please."  He  put  a  large  hand  up  to  his 
mouth  to  muffle  a  laugh.  "I  can  hardly  help 
laughing,"  he  said,  "when  I  think  what  we'll  do 
to  Mr.  Rexford — me  at  the  wire  in  Omaha  and 
you  out  at  Fremont  or  Hastings." 

At  Omaha  the  Rexford  Commission  Company 
received  in  stock  quotations  direct  from  New 
York  by  a  drop  from  the  "C  N  D"  wire.  As  the 
figures  were  chalked  up  on  the  blackboard  there, 
Pound  repeated  them  over  the  private  wire  to 
the  allied  offices — but  not  always  accurately.  If 

49 


he  sent  out,  for  example,  "SR  SR  8.23  GN  186," 
the  operator  thought  that  meant  simply,  "South- 
ern Railway  has  sold  at  23 ;  Great  Northern  now 
sells  at  1 86,"  and  that  Pound  had  stammered  a 
bit  over  the  "Southern  Railway."  But  to  Emma, 
sitting  demurely  in  the  Fremont  bucketshop  and 
carefully  listening  to  the  telegraph  instrument,  it 
meant,  "Great  Northern  has  been  going  down  and 
I  have  been  holding  out  the  quotations  on  it,  so 
sell  some." 

Beating  Mr.  Rexford's  bucketshops  by  this 
method  was  so  easy  that  it  was  almost  humdrum. 
Save  for  the  money  it  brought  in  they  might  al- 
most have  given  it  up  as  a  bore.  There  was 
hardly  a  check  upon  Pound.  The  only  record  of 
what  he  sent  consisted  of  the  chalkmarks  on  the 
Fremont  blackboard,  which  were  wiped  out  at  the 
end  of  the  day's  trading.  He  could  hold  out  a 
quotation  on  a  rather  inactive  stock  for  hours 
together,  and  had  such  freedom  in  arranging  sig- 
nals that  he  could  almost  visit  with  Emma  over 
the  wire. 

In  fact,  it  was  too  easy.  That  was  its  fatal 
50 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


defect.  They  tried  to  restrain  themselves  in  order 
to  avoid  arousing  suspicion.  But  Emma  won  so 
persistently  that  the  manager  of  the  Fremont 
office  simply  refused  to  let  her  trade  any  longer. 
Again  the  game  was  up.  Before  that,  however, 
an  important  event  had  happened. 

Dropping  in  at  the  barroom  of  a  hotel  one 
afternoon  for  a  little  social  relaxation,  Pound 
saw  a  man  who  stood  at  the  end  of  the  bar  over 
a  glass  of  beer.  At  the  same  time  the  man  saw 
Pound.  He  was  a  little  the  elder  of  the  two — 
tall,  lean,  round-shouldered,  his  mouth  covered 
by  a  bushy,  red  mustache.  He  was  noticeably 
frayed  and  seedy;  a  much-faded  derby  hat 
perched  rakishly  on  the  back  of  his  head.  His 
name  was  Hamilton,  and  he  had  been  associated 
with  Pound  in  a  certain  wire-tapping  enterprise 
which  had  turned  out  unfortunately  for  the  latter. 
Pound  saw  at  once  that  Hamilton  recognized 
him;  also,  that  Hamilton  was  on  his  uppers.  So 
he  went  over  promptly,  holding  out  his  hand,  say- 
ing cordially:  "Why,  Ham,  how  are  you?" 

Hamilton  as  promptly  took  the  outstretched 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


hand.     "Says  I  to  myself,"  he  said  humorously, 
"there's  Johnny  Pound  to  the  life." 

"You  were  wrong,"  Pound  replied  easily.  "It's 
Johnny  Roth."  He  took  the  man  companionably 
by  the  arm,  led  him  to  a  table  in  the  adjoining 
grillroom,  and  ordered  a  bottle  of  champagne. 

"Coming  that  easy  for  you,  eh?"  Hamilton 
commented,  and  his  grin  was  all  the  franker  be- 
cause a  sort  of  open  envy  appeared  in  it.  They 
talked  for  more  than  an  hour.  Hamilton  told  his 
hard-luck  story  humorously;  said  he  was  up 
against  it;  guessed  he'd  have  to  try  once  more  to 
get  a  job  pounding  a  telegraph  key. 

Pound's  heart  expanded.  Of  the  gang  which 
had  left  him  to  hold  the  bag,  he  regarded  Ham- 
ilton as  the  least  treacherous ;  and  he  could  realize 
how  this  other  man  loathed  to  shut  himself  up  in 
a  den,  drearily  rattling  a  telegraph  key  all  day  for 
board  and  clothes. 

"Don't  do  it,  old  man,"  he  said  quickly.  "I 
can  put  you  on  to  something.  Let  me  give  you  a 
boost  now."  He  took  a  roll  of  bills  from  his 
pocket  and  peeled  off  three  tens. 

52 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Hamilton's  bony  hand  closed  over  the  money 
and  for  a  moment  he  regarded  Pound  with  a 
dumb  eloquence  of  gratitude.  Indeed,  when  he 
glanced  down  his  eyes  were  misty.  "All  right, 
Johnny,"  he  said  simply;  "you'll  find  me  right  on 
the  job  whenever  you  want  me." 

Now,  the  same  signals  which  Pound  sent  to 
Emma  at  Fremont  would  answer  for  Hamilton 
at  Hastings.  It  wouldn't  hurt  her  game  much  if 
Hamilton  was  playing  it  a  little  farther  along  the 
line.  It  would  be  about  like  taking  so  much 
money  out  of  the  air  for  Hamilton — who  would 
naturally  divide  with  him.  That  was  the  way  it 
had  appeared  to  Pound  at  first  blush.  Yet  by  the 
time  he  reached  his  modest  boarding-house  he 
was  very  thoughtful.  Emma  had  not  only  been 
square  with  him,  but  she  had  brought  him  luck. 
Next  day  he  sent  her  a  telegram,  and  when  she 
appeared  in  response  to  it  he  told  her  frankly 
about  Hamilton.  This  event  made  a  deep  im- 
pression upon  Emma,  showing  her  where  the 
security  of  her  position  lay,  and  where  the  in- 
security. 

53 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Only  three  days  later  the  Fremont  manager 
refused  her  trades.  The  game  was  up. 

"They  haven't  caught  on,"  she  said,  "but  they 
suspect  something.  They'll  be  firing  Hamilton 
out  of  the  Hastings  office  next,  or  they'll  be  firing 
you  out  of  this  office.  It's  up  to  us  to  make  a  new 
move,  Johnny." 

Pound  listened  to  her  with  a  divided  mind.  He 
was,  in  fact,  much  surprised.  She  had  written 
him  the  day  before  to  meet  her  that  afternoon 
at  the  Paxton  Hotel  in  time  for  dinner,  and  when 
she  stepped  into  the  parlor  he  was  really  aston- 
ished. For  she  was  no  longer  dressed  like  a 
nurse.  He  didn't  know  what  the  soft  stuff  of  her 
gown  was,  nor  how  it  was  made,  but  he  knew  it 
was  very  becoming.  Her  hair  was  done  differ- 
ently, too — in  a  classical  sort  of  way  that  not  only 
matched  her  close  little  hat  with  black  velvet 
wings,  but  made  her  look  younger  and  more  pi- 
quant. He  had  no  suspicion  of  how  outrageously 
she  had  bullied  the  saleslady,  the  fitter,  the 
milliner  and  the  hairdresser  in  order  to  achieve 
this  effect  within  a  single  day;  but  the  effect  was 

54 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


not  lost  upon  him.  She  had  not  meant  that  it 
should  be.  As  they  walked  down  the  dining-room 
he  saw  a  number  of  men  turn  and  look  after  her. 

"It's  up  to  us  to  move,  Johnny,"  she  repeated, 
as  though  she  were  quite  unaware  that  she  had 
surprised  him.  "I  tell  you,  we've  been  playing 
the  wrong  end  of  this  game — the  pickers'  end. 
That  old  geezer  Rexford  is  making  money  right 
alone  in  spite  of  the  way  we  skin  him.  Up  there 
at  Fremont  the  suckers  fairly  fall  over  each  other 
to  lose  their  spare  cash.  We  want  that  end  of 
the  game.  We've  got  to  have  a  bucketshop  of 
our  own." 

Then  she  unfolded  her  plan,  which  was  nothing 
less  than  that  Pound  should  induce  Rexford  him- 
self to  back  them  in  the  venture. 

"That  old  hogl"  Pound  exclaimed  incredu- 
lously. By  this  time  he  found  himself  hating  Mr. 
Rexford  very  cordially.  The  bucketshop  man's 
recipe  for  dealing  with  subordinates  was  very  sim- 
ple. He  just  bullied  them.  Pound  would  have 
found  the  situation  unbearable  but  for  the  sweet 
consolation  that,  while  he  took  Rexford's  insults 

55 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


with  one  hand,  he  robbed  him  with  the  other. 

Emma,  however,  persisted.  Rexford  was  then 
making  money  in  his  bucketshop,  she  urged,  so 
he  must  think  well  of  bucketshops  generally; 
Pound  had  kept  on  the  right  side  of  him  and  could 
get  still  closer  to  that  side.  "You  can  work  him 
all  right,  Johnny,"  she  urged  confidently.  "You 
say  yourself  he's  a  fathead,  and  what  are  fatheads 
for  but  to  be  worked?  I'll  tackle  him  myself  1 
Just  introduce  me  to  him  as  a  widow  who's  anx- 
ious to  invest  her  life-insurance  money  to  good  ad- 
vantage. I'll  bet  I  can  bring  him  over." 

The  suggestion  was  repugnant  to  Pound  in  a 
way  he  would  not  have  expected  the  day  before. 
He  was  acquainted  with  Mr.  Rexford's  reputation 
for  a  sort  of  gutter  gallantry.  He  suspected  that 
this  dusky,  vivid  person  at  whom  men  glanced 
over  their  shoulders  could  persuade  Rexford;  but 
the  idea  of  her  doing  so  was  disagreeable.  It 
evoked,  in  fact,  something  like  jealousy. 

"I'll  tackle  him  myself,"  he  said  briefly. 

Mr.  Rexford  was  then  fifty-five  years  old — a 
heavy,  mussy,  fussy  person,  addicted  to  wide 

56 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


slouch  hats,  long  frock  coats  and  low  vests  that 
displayed  a  good  deal  of  linen  which  was  no  bet- 
ter than  it  should  have  been.  He  was  nearly  bald 
and  carried  a  roll  of  fat  on  the  back  of  his  neck. 
He  was  always  lumbering  about  the  office,  with  an 
eye  to  economy,  getting  himself  into  a  stew  over 
trifles.  He  was  naturally  suspicious,  yet  very 
conceited — therefore  grossly  open  to  flattery. 
Pound  took  his  time  in  working  up  to  the  pro- 
posal. 

He  could  borrow  five  thousand  dollars  from  his 
uncle,  he  told  his  employer,  and  they  would  form  a 
separate  company  to  operate  in  some  different 
field,  he  putting  in  five  thousand  and  taking  a  quar- 
ter interest,  while  Mr.  Rexford  put  in  fifteen  thou- 
sand and  took  a  three-quarter  interest.  Mr.  Rex- 
ford,  who  by  that  time  thought  very  well  of  his 
excessively  deferential  telegraph  operator,  lis- 
tened tolerantly  to  the  proposal. 

They  had  called  Hamilton  in  from  Hastings, 
for  it  wouldn't  do  to  take  any  chance  of  Rexford 
getting  suspicious  at  that  stage.  Thus  a  difficulty 
confronted  them.  Pound  was  agreeing  to  put  in 

57 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


five  thousand  dollars;  but  they  had  only  thirty- 
seven  hundred,  out  of  which  Emma  and  Hamilton 
must  live  until  the  new  concern  got  started.  They 
were  rather  confident,  however,  that  they  could 
bluff  it  through  at  the  last  moment. 

While  the  negotiations  were  going  on,  Emma 
decided  to  run  back  to  Chicago.  She  could  live 
cheaply  there,  she  said,  and  she  had  nothing  to 
do  in  Omaha.  Pound  was  rather  loath  to  have 
her  go.  As  she  had  been  unemployed  of  late  they 
had,  naturally,  seen  a  good  deal  of  each  other — 
dining  together,  going  to  the  theatre  and  so  on. 
She  was  good  company.  He  felt  that  he  would 
be  sort  of  lonesome  without  her. 

Three  weeks  later,  at  Chicago,  she  received  a 
telegram  from  him,  and  took  the  first  train  for  St. 
Paul.  He  met  her  at  the  station,  and  the  moment 
she  saw  him  her  eyes  lit  up.  In  the  first  place,  he 
had  shaved  off  his  beard.  That  made  him  look 
younger  and  revealed  a  strong,  well-modeled  chin 
and  humorous  mouth  which  fairly  redeemed  his 
big  nose  and  bushy  eyebrows.  In  the  next  place, 
he  was  very  well  dressed,  and  that  further  im- 

58 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


proved  his  appearance.  She  rather  guessed  why 
he  had  done  these  things.  Then,  he  strode  along 
the  platform  with  his  chin  up  like  a  man  who  not 
only  knew  his  way,  but  proposed  to  take  it.  "I've 
made  a  winner  of  him,  too  1"  she  thought. 

In  the  snug  intimacy  of  the  cab  he  twinkled  at 
her  a  moment,  and  even  grinned  a  little,  like  a 
man  in  high  good  humor.  It  made  her  almost 
ready  to  laugh  herself,  for  she  had  seen  him  in 
high  good  humor  before. 

"Well,"  he  began  genially,  "we've  had  a  high 
old  time.  You  see,  I'd  been  licking  Rexford's 
boots  for  a  month,  abjectly  deferring  to  him  in 
everything,  going  around  him  with  my  hat  in  my 
hand,  and  I  thought  I'd  quite  won  the  old  hog's 
heart.  I  thought  he  regarded  me  as  a  favorite 
son  and  would  almost  hand  over  his  bank  account 
if  I  asked  for  it.  Then,  just  after  you  left,  he 
told  me  he'd  decided  to  have  his  brother-in-law, 
Mr.  Moxley,  take  hold  with  me  in  managing  the 
new  concern — naturally,  so  as  to  make  sure  I 
didn't  steal  anything!" 

He  tipped  back  his  head  and  laughed  with 
59 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


much  relish  but  little  noise.  "Of  course,  coming 
from  papa,  that  was  quite  a  jolt  to  me,  but  all  I 
could  say  was  that  I  thought  it  would  be  just  the 
thing.  This  fellow  Moxley  is  about  sixty — a  very 
dignified  old  boy.  He  has  beautiful,  iron-gray 
side  whiskers  and  glittering  false  teeth  and  a  head 
like  a  cigar-sign  Indian.  He  knows  just  two 
things — to  stroke  his  whiskers  when  he  wants  to 
look  thoughtful,  and  to  show  his  false  teeth  when 
he  wants  to  look  friendly.  Well,  Brother  Mox- 
ley and  I  came  up  here  and  decided  on  this  loca- 
tion, and  everything  went  swimmingly.  I  rented 
an  office,  and  the  deal  was  all  ready  to  close  up." 
He  put  his  hand  to  his  face  and  muffled  a  laugh 
behind  it.  "You  see,"  he  went  on,  "I  had  left  the 
legal  details  to  Rexford — getting  the  company 
incorporated  and  so  on.  He  proposed  to  call  it 
the  Moxley  Stock  and  Grain  Company,  which 
was  as  good  a  name  as  any  other.  So  we  were 
ready  to  start  the  thing  going,  and  Rexford  came 
up  here  with  his  lawyer.  That  was  Tuesday. 
We  got  together  and  then  I  sprung  my  little  joker. 

I  told  Rexford  I  was  very  sorry,  but  my  uncle  had 

60 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


sent  on  only  thirty-five  hundred  dollars,  saying 
he  would  send  the  rest  in  a  fortnight,  so  I  would 
just  turn  in  thirty-five  hundred  in  cash  and  my 
note  for  the  other  fifteen  hundred.  I  expected 
there  would  be  a  row  over  that,  but  to  my  sur- 
prise Rexford  said  it  would  be  entirely  satisfac- 
tory to  him." 

He  stopped  to  laugh  again,  drawing  his  heavy 
eyebrows  together  as  though  the  joke  really  hurt 
him.  "And  then,"  he  continued,  "Rexford  sprung 
his  little  joker.  He  said  he'd  been  hard  hit  at 
Omaha,  which  was  a  grotesque  lie,  and  could  put 
in  only  four  thousand  dollars  in  cash  at  the  mo- 
ment; but  he  would  give  his  note  for  the  other 
eleven  thousand.  I'd  played  right  into  his  hand; 
he  was  giving  me  back  my  own  cardl  I  guess  I 
turned  three  shades  of  green;  but  I  couldn't  do 
a  thing  except  grin  and  take  my  own  medicine. 
So,  the  capital  of  the  company  consists  of  seventy- 
five  hundred  dollars  in  cash  and  my  note  for 
fifteen  hundred  and  Rexford's  note  for  eleven 
thousand.  But,  you  see,  Rexford  has  three-quar- 
ters of  the  stock  and  I  only  one-quarter.  So  he 

61 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


could  outvote  me  at  every  turn.  And  he  calmly 
proceeded  to  elect  Moxley  president  of  the  com- 
pany at  a  salary  of  three  hundred  dollars  a  month, 
and  me  secretary  at  a  salary  of  one  hundred  dol- 
lars. Also,  he  adopted  a  set  of  by-laws  which  put 
all  the  money  absolutely  under  the  control  of  the 
president.  I  can't  sign  a  check  for  a  postage 
stamp.  And  I  had  to  sit  there  like  a  bear  tied  to 
a  stake  and  grin  and  take  it!" 

Pound's  merriment  fairly  passed  control.  He 
tipped  back  his  head,  shaking  with  laughter. 
"There's  right  where  Rexford  puts  me  off,  you 
see!"  he  gasped.  "That's  my  wages  for  licking 
his  boots!  He's  got  the  game  all  framed  up  to 
suit  himself!  He's  thrown  me  down  at  every  turn 
and  got  me  safely  sewed  up  in  a  sack — and  then, 
you  see,  he's  gone  back  to  Omaha  and  left  a  pair 
of  side-whiskers  and  a  set  of  false  teeth  to  keep 
me  sewed  up !" 

She  saw  the  point  instantly,  and  restrained  an 
impulse  to  throw  her  arms  around  his  neck  from 
pure  joy  in  the  joke.  Bending  toward  him,  her 

eyes  sparkling,  she  laughed  and  put  her  tongue 

62 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


to  her  teeth  in  a  manner  sometimes  used  by  chil- 
dren to  indicate  derision.  Pound  wiped  his  eyes, 
sobering,  and  went  on  with  the  explanation: 

"We've  decided  to  open  only  two  outside  offices 
at  first,  as  we're  rather  short  of  cash.  They're 
to  be  run  ostensibly  as  independent  concerns  on 
Rexford's  old  plan,  and  I've  agreed  to  handle 
the  quotations  from  here — to  save  an  operator's 
salary,  you  know."  He  grinned  broadly.  "That 
really  charmed  Mr.  Moxley.  I've  already  worked 
Hamilton  in  to  run  the  Long  Falls  office.  He 
agreed  to  do  it  for  only  eighteen  dollars  a  week, 
and  that  charmed  economical  Mr.  Moxley,  too. 
Moxley  himself  has  picked  out  a  man  to  run  the 
Wyandotte  office — a  cheap  and  more  or  less 
chuckleheaded  man  named  Brown.  With  you  at 
Wyandotte  listening  to  the  wire,  and  Hamilton 
running  the  Long  Falls  office,  and  me  handing  the 
quotations  here,  we'll  see  how  long  it  takes  us  to 
trim  Brother  Moxley's  whiskers.  You  might  ex- 
cuse a  couple  of  really  bright  men  for  trying  to 
do  you  up;  but  for  a  fat  old  slob  and  a  wooden 
Indian  to  try  it  is  humiliating.  I'm  anxious  to 

63 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


get  at  'em."  Emma  perceived  that  he  was,  in 
fact,  hungry  to  begin  his  profitable  revenge. 

The  career  of  the  Moxley  Stock  and  Grain 
Company,  however,  was  rather  longer  than 
Pound  had  expected.  As  soon  as  the  Wyandotte 
and  Long  Falls  offices  were  open  the  usual  flock 
of  suckers  appeared  to  play  the  market.  If  they 
dealt  in  stocks  they  almost  invariably  bought — 
that  is,  bet  that  stocks  would  rise.  But  if  they 
dealt  in  wheat  they  often  sold — that  is,  bet  that 
wheat  would  fall — for  that  neighborhood  had  just 
gathered  a  large  harvest.  The  stock  market  was 
falling,  so  four-fifths  of  all  the  money  that  out- 
siders pushed  across  the  counter  at  Wyandotte 
and  Long  Falls  to  bet  on  stocks  remained  with 
the  company.  But  the  wheat  market  occasion- 
ally fell,  too,  so  sometimes  an  outsider  won  on 
that. 

Pound,  in  his  eagerness  for  revenge  and  his 
utter  contempt  of  Moxley,  played  a  crude  game. 
He  would  hold  back  quotations  on  a  stock  until 
it  had  fallen  over  a  point;  then  flash  Emma 
and  Hamilton  a  signal  to  sell.  Sometimes,  if  the 

64 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


stock  rose  a  little  after  they  had  sold,  thereby 
diminishing  their  gains,  he  would  send  in  a  per- 
fectly bogus  quotation.  Emma  protested  that  he 
was  going  too  fast.  Often  she  would  sell  only  a 
hundred  shares  when  he  wanted  her  to  sell  two  or 
three  hundred. 

At  Wyandotte  these  larcenous  transactions  had 
an  appearance  of  regularity,  for  they  were  made 
by  Emma,  who  seemed  to  be  a  mere  outside  specu- 
lator. But  at  Long  Falls  Hamilton  had  no  con- 
federate. He  made  the  bogus  deals  himself  under 
the  name  of  a  dummy,  and  Hamilton  had  no 
conservative  scruples  against  stealing  the  money 
as  fast  as  Pound  wanted  him  to. 

At  the  end  of  ten  days,  in  spite  of  Pound's  gross 
manipulation,  the  Moxley  Stock  and  Grain  Com- 
pany was  still  on  its  legs — thanks  partly  to  the 
money  that  the  suckers  handed  in.  It  was  very 
near  the  end  of  its  bankroll,  however.  Pound 
proposed  to  wind  it  up.  So  he  wrote  Emma  and 
Hamilton  that  they  must  buy  or  sell  five  hundred 
shares  on  every  signal.  The  next  morning  he 
received  this  letter  from  Emma: 

65 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Got  your  letter,  but  didn't  make  a 
trade  today.  This  shebang  has  only 
eight  hundred  dollars  left  in  the  bank, 
and  if  it  settled  with  what  few  outside 
customers  have  won  it  wouldn't  have 
much  of  anything.  I  know,  you  see,  for 
I've  sort  of  got  next  the  boy  who  keeps 
the  books.  I'm  nervous.  A  fat  old  boy 
has  been  rubbering  around  here  all  day. 
Don't  like  him.  Never  did  like  pork. 
Looks  to  me  as  though  he  was  too  thick 
with  the  manager  here — Moxley's  man, 
you  remember.  I'm  suspicious.  Let's 
go  slow  a  bit. 

Pound  read  the  letter  at  breakfast  and  was 
angry.  He  had  put  over  a  couple  of  big  ones  the 
day  before.  If  Emma  had  played  them  he 
thought  the  concern  would  be  about  broke  by 
now.  But  here  she  had  been  holding  off — be- 
cause she  saw  a  fat  man !  In  his  vexation  he  im- 
puted this  to  the  constitutional  weakness  of  her 
sex.  His  own  mind  was  not  set  precautionary- 
wise,  but  in  a  quite  opposite  direction. 

As  it  happened,  the  market  hung  in  a  balance 
that  forenoon.  There  was  no  chance  to  make 
a  good,  sure  trade.  This  further  annoyed  Pound. 

A  little  after  one  o'clock  a  telegram  from  Emma, 

66 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


sent  over  the  public  wire,  was  handed  him.     It 
read: 

"Pork  went  to  Long  Falls  on  the  night  train." 

Pork  obviously  meant  the  fat  man;  but  why  in 
the  world  was  the  woman  so  exercised  about  him 
that  she  had  looked  up  his  movements  ?  He  won- 
dered rather  sarcastically,  and  then  a  sudden  in- 
tuition flashed  the  answer  into  his  brain.  A  fat, 
porcine  man.  It  was  Rexford! 

The  situation  lay  open  before  him  as  though 
a  curtain  had  rolled  up.  Stupid  old  Moxley 
hadn't  been  so  completely  taken  in,  after  all;  he 
had  finally  conceived  a  belated  suspicion  of  some- 
thing crooked;  he  had  notified  Rexford  about 
those  ruinous  short  sales  at  Wyandotte  and  Long 
Falls;  Rexford  had  smelled  the  right  mouse  at 
once  and  set  out  to  investigate  on  the  spot. 

Now,  at  Wyandotte  Rexford  was  at  a  disad- 
vantage, for  there  the  bogus  transactions  looked 
regular,  and  Emma  could  be  trusted  not  to  give 
herself  away.  But  at  Long  Falls,  where  the  man- 
ager himself  made  the  bogus  deals  under  a  dummy 

67 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


name,  the  fraud  was  palpable.  Anybody  who  got 
hold  of  the  books  and  then  inquired  for  a  non- 
existent "G.  W.  Jones"  could  detect  it.  And 
Hamilton  was  a  weaker  vessel  than  Emma. 

Dropping  the  telegram,  Pound  reached  to  his 
key,  called  the  operator  at  Long  Falls  and  asked 
for  Hamilton.  The  operator  replied  that  Ham- 
ilton had  just  stepped  out.  Pound  gently  bit  his 
lip.  "Have  him  call  me  as  soon  as  he  comes  in," 
he  wired.  An  anxious  quarter  of  an  hour  passed. 
Having  heard  nothing,  Pound  called  again,  and 
again  was  told  that  Hamilton  was  out. 

Wyandotte  and  Long  Falls,  he  knew,  were 
only  about  thirty-five  miles  apart.  Probably  a 
telephone  connected  them,  or  there  might  be  a 
train  soon.  He  wrote  a  message  to  go  to  Emma 
over  the  public  wires : 

Pork  patriotism  Rexford.  Put  ham 
on.    Books  basalt  ignite.    Accelerate. 

They  had,  in  fact,  no  cipher  for  the  public  wire, 
but  he  knew  she  had  wit  enough  to  interpret  his 
message  as  he  meant  it:  "The  fat  man  is  Rex- 
ford;  warn  Hamilton;  tell  him  to  burn  the  books; 

68 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


be  swift."  He  signed  it  "First  National,"  which 
was  as  good  a  name  as  any  other. 

That  message  to  Emma  was  at  least  an  anchor 
to  the  windward.  Fifteen  minutes  later  he  again 
called  for  Hamilton,  but  Hamilton  was  still  out. 
Then  a  very  distressing  suspicion  rose  in  Pound's 
mind.  Now,  Hamilton  himself  was  a  telegraph 
operator  and  a  good  fellow;  among  telegraph 
operators  there  is  a  sort  of  free-masonry;  no 
doubt  this  operator  at  Long  Falls  would  do  his 
best  to  shield  Hamilton  if  he  needed  shielding. 
Pound  began  sending  imperative  questions  to  the 
operator,  which  the  operator  evaded  or  parried. 
Pound's  apprehension  and  anger  steadily  rose. 
At  length  he  sent:  "I've  known  Pete  Hamilton 
for  years;  he's  one  of  my  best  friends;  I'm  re- 
sponsible for  him  and  for  that  office.  I  want  you 
to  answer  point  blank  whether  he's  been  drinking 
today.  If  you  don't  answer  in  one  minute  and 
answer  right  I'll  fire  you  on  the  spot  and  close  the 
office." 

The  answer  came  promptly:  "Guess  Ham's 
been  taking  something,  but  he's  out  working  with 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


a  man  that  he  thinks  is  going  to  make  a  good 
customer." 

And  to  Pound's  demand  for  a  description  of 
the  man  the  operator  replied:  "Fat,  fifty  to  sixty 
years  old;  bald,  puffy  face;  wears  long,  greasy 
frock  coat;  has  roll  of  fat  in  back  of  neck." 

"Leave  your  key.  Go  out  and  find  Ham. 
Bring  him  in,"  Pound  directed.  He  knew  that, 
even  as  his  own  nervous  fingers  rattled  the  little 
black  button,  the  operator  at  Long  Falls  was 
reading  the  message;  yet  a  sense  of  the  awful 
hundred  and  ten  miles  which  stretched  between 
them  lay  upon  him  like  a  nightmare. 

Only  a  minute  passed,  however,  before  the 
operator  sent :  "Ham  and  the  man  are  here.  Do 
you  want  to  talk  to  him?"  Another  minute 
passed,  then  the  instrument  spoke  in  a  different 
voice.  "Hello,  old  man;  what  you  want?"  it 
clicked  off.  To  Pound's  expert  ear  the  voice  ran 
its  sound  together — fairly  hiccoughed  and  slob- 
bered. It  was  Hamilton,  and  Hamilton  was  very 
drunk.  Pound  knew  it  as  well  as  though  he  had 

seen  him  staggering. 

70 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


There  was  a  situation — Hamilton  hopelessly 
drunk,  and  Rexford  at  his  elbow  1 

Pound  didn't  know  whether  or  not  Rexford 
could  read  the  wire;  but  he  knew  the  psychology 
of  intoxication — one  might  as  well  lean  on  a 
shadow  as  depend  upon  Hamilton  in  this  state  for 
anything.  His  heart  sort  of  broke.  He  wired 
merely:  "You  shouldn't  leave  the  office  this  way. 
You're  tight,  old  man.  Be  very,  very  careful." 
When  he  finished  sending  the  message  his  brow 
and  the  backs  of  his  hands  were  moist  with  per- 
spiration. 

Three  months  before,  in  a  less  desperate  case, 
he  would  have  thought  of  flight.  The  idea  did 
occur  to  him  remotely  now.  More  than  half  the 
profits  which  the  confederates  had  drained  from 
the  Wyandotte  and  Long  Falls  offices  had  been 
forwarded  to  him.  He  could  draw  nearly  five 
thousand  dollars  from  the  bank  and  skip.  But 
he  was  a  bolder  man  now.  His  fingers  almost 
touched  the  stake  he  was  playing  for,  and  that 
inspired  him.  He  didn't  propose  to  run  like  a  dog 
and  be  hunted  like  a  dog.  He  hated  porcine  Rex- 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


ford  out  of  all  proportion  to  any  cause  he  had  for 
hatred.  He  was  chock  full  of  a  dogged  rage  to 
play  the  game  out  with  the  fat  man.  He  hadn't 
heard  from  Emma.  Very  likely  she  was  on  her 
way  to  Long  Falls — brave  as  a  weasel. 

Leaving  the  office  he  looked  up  a  timetable. 
The  first  train  he  could  get  for  Long  Falls  was  an 
accommodation  leaving  at  half-past  eight,  reach- 
ing there  a  quarter  to  one.  But  he  saw  that  a 
train  passed  through  Wyandotte,  going  to  Long 
Falls,  at  a  quarter  to  three  that  afternoon.  Per- 
haps Emma  had  taken  it.  There  was  nothing  for 
him  to  do  but  wait  for  the  half-past-eight  train. 

When  he  got  into  the  train  he  could  hardly 
make  it  feel  true  that  only  six  hours  had  passed 
since  he  heard  from  Long  Falls.  It  seemed  more 
like  six  months.  Now  and  then  he  was  obsessed 
by  a  notion  that  the  train  wasn't  going  at  all;  its 
revolving  wheels  merely  marked  time.  When  it 
should  have  been  long  past  midnight  it  was  only 
ten  minutes  past  nine.  He  couldn't  read;  could 
only  sit  in  the  seat  and  suffer.  Presently  the  moon 

arose,  and  he  stared  out  at  the  glimmering  prairie 

72 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


landscape,  which  seemed  not  so  much  to  march 
past  the  car  window  as  to  perform  a  slow,  dizzy 
waltz  around  it. 

At  length,  the  brakeman  bustled  through  the 
car,  lantern  in  hand,  and  shouted  "Wyandotte! 
Wyandotte  I"  So  they  were  that  far  at  last!  Only 
an  hour  and  twenty  minutes  more!  The  immi- 
nence of  the  journey's  end  made  his  nerves  ache. 
And  then  it  seemed  as  though  they  would  never 
leave  Wyandotte.  The  train  crew  and  depot  men 
pottered  idiotically  around  the  platform,  where  a 
score  of  townspeople  loafed.  It  seemed  to  Pound 
that  those  loafing  townspeople  must  have  been 
there  from  immemorial  time,  like  figures  carved 
on  an  Egyptian  temple.  After  a  long,  long 
while  he  got  a  disagreeable  impression,  in  spite 
of  the  testimony  of  his  watch,  that  they  must  have 
passed  Long  Falls  while  he  slept. 

Finally  the  brakeman  called  it:  "Long  Falls! 
Long  Falls!"  And,  at  the  sound,  Pound's  ex- 
cessive nervous  agitation  suddenly  left  him.  He 
could  fairly  feel  the  quivering  little  fibers  in  his 
arms  and  breast  settle  and  grow  firm.  Stepping 

73, 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


out  of  the  train  he  surveyed  the  station  calmly — 
a  large,  barnlike  building,  painted  red.  It  oc- 
curred to  him  there  was  rather  a  large  crowd  for 
a  country  railroad  station  at  one  o'clock.  He 
looked  it  over  coolly,  but  saw  no  familiar  face. 
He  had  provided  himself  with  the  name  of  the 
leading  hotel;  so  now  he  gave  his  bag  to  the  bus 
driver,  saying  he  would  walk.  He  felt  cramped, 
he  explained  casually,  from  sitting  in  the 
train. 

Soon,  up  the  moonlit  street,  he  saw  quite  a 
crowd — two  or  three  score  men — standing  at  the 
curb  and  on  the  cement  sidewalk.  In  front  of 
tfiem  was  a  wide  gap  in  the  row  of  buildings. 
For  merely  an  instant  he  wondered  what  they 
were  doing.  Then  he  saw  that  a  broad,  bluish 
mist  rose  steadily  in  the  gap,  floating  up  into  the 
opalescent  air,  and  his  eye  caught  the  glow  of  live 
embers.  His  heart  gave  a  big  leap. 

Half  a  dozen  men  loitered  in  front  of  the  hotel, 
looking  up  and  across  the  street  to  the  smoky  gap. 
He  paused  beside  them. 

"Yes,  sir,"  one  of  them  was  saying,  "if  there'd 
74 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


'a'  been  a  good  south  wind  it'd  'a'  swep'  the  whole 
block  sure!" 

"What  burned?"  Pound  inquired,  like  a  cas- 
ually-interested stranger. 

"Two  frame  buildings,"  the  man  replied;  "bar- 
ber-shop in  one  and  the  new  stock  exchange  in 
the  other." 

"Ah,"  said  Pound  casually.  His  presence  as  a 
stranger  checked  the  talk  for  a  moment. 

Then  a  stumpy  man  who  was  slowly  twisting 
a  chin  whisker  and  chewing  tobacco  observed 
knowingly:  "Looks  to  me  like  it  was  spontaneous 

combustion the  two-legged  kind.'*  Evidently 

he  wished  to  make  an  impression  upon  the 
stranger  and  unfold  his  theories  anew.  But 
Pound  turned  calmly  to  the  hotel  door. 

As  he  stepped  forward  his  eyes  fell  upon  a  man 
at  the  side  of  the  doorway,  leaning  against  the 
wall  of  the  building — a  very  slouchy,  lank  sort  of 
man,  with  a  stubble  of  sandy  beard  over  his  hun- 
gry-looking face.  The  man  was  chewing  tobacco 
and  whittling  a  stick.  As  their  eyes  met,  Pound 
experienced  a  subtle,  indefinable  sort  of  shock. 

75 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


The  man's  look  was  so  intent,  so  personal  and  so 
hungry  that  it  vaguely  reminded  Pound  of  a  wolf 
just  ready  to  bite ;  also,  it  occurred  to  him  vaguely 
that  standing  aloof  and  whittling  a  stick  indicated 
some  mental  disturbance.  The  impression  did  not 
go  deep,  however.  Pound  stepped  by  and  entered 
the  hotel. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   USUAL   HAPPY  ENDING 

WHEN  he  stepped  into  the  hotel  Pound 
had  very  little  of  plan.     There  was 
very  little  within  his  knowledge  upon 
which  to  build  one.    He  had  an  impression  that 
the  man  with  the  stick  turned  to  look  after  him. 
His  bag,  brought  by  the  bus  driver,  already  stood 
on  the  floor  of  the  hotel  office  in  front  of  the  desk. 
Behind  the  desk  a  sleepy-looking  young  man  re- 
garded him  with  a  bored  expectancy,  and  mechan- 
ically dipped  the  pen  in  ink  for  him  to  register. 

Taking  the  pen,  Pound  glanced  over  his  shoul- 
der. The  man  with  the  stick  certainly  had  turned 
and  was  peering  at  him  through  the  glass  panel 
of  the  door.  Pound  wrote  coolly,  "J.  W.  Smith, 
Chicago."  His  eye  ran  up  the  page  of  the  regis- 
ter. Five  lines  above  the  name  he  had  written  he 
saw,  "Ellen  White,  Wyandotte,"  in  Emma's 

77 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


hand.  He  noted  that  her  room  was  number  sixty- 
seven.  Near  the  top  of  the  page  was  "George 
Glass,  Omaha,"  in  Rexford's  clumsy  scrawl. 

He  guessed  that  room  sixty-seven  would  be  on 
the  third  floor,  so  he  asked  for  a  room  in  that 
story.  The  upper  floor  was  usually  quieter,  he 
explained.  The  clerk  put  "71"  opposite  his  name, 
then  came  around  and  took  up  his  bag  to  show 
him  the  way.  The  single  incandescent  lamp  in 
the  upper  hall  was  set  to  burn  dimly,  yet  it  gave 
rather  more  light  than  Pound  cared  for.  As  they 
passed  number  sixty-seven  he  saw  that  it  was  dark 
and  still. 

In  his  own  room  he  waited  a  long  time — 
namely,  ten  minutes  by  his  watch.  Then  he 
turned  out  the  light,  opened  the  door  very  care- 
fully and  tiptoed  into  the  hall.  His  heart  beat 
fast,  for  in  half  a  minute  now  he  would  know  his 
luck.  He  stole  to  number  sixty-seven  and  tapped 
very  gently  on  the  panel.  No  answer  came,  and 
he  tapped  a  little  louder,  listening  with  all  his 
ears.  Then  he  gave  a  sigh  of  relief;  luck  was 
with  him;  for  from  within  came  Emma's  voice 

78 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


saying,  "In  a  minute."    An  electric  button  clicked 
and  light  shone  at  the  transom. 

Her  minute  was  mortally  long,  and  he  could 
hardly  keep  from  calling  to  her,  for  he  expected 
every  instant  some  door  would  open,  the  clerk 
would  appear,  and  he  would  be  put  to  the  very 
great  inconvenience  of  having  to  explain  himself. 
He  was  nervous  as  a  frightened  cat  by  the  time 
the  key  turned  in  the  lock,  and  when  the  door 
opened  he  simply  bolted  in. 

Emma  sprang  back,  clutching  to  her  throat  the 
wrapper  which  she  had  thrown  on.  She  was  quite 
pale,  and  the  sight  of  him  seemed  fairly  to  paral- 
yze her.  Her  eyes  looked  as  though  she  saw  a 
ghost,  and  she  gasped;  then  she  gave  a  little,  half 
articulate  cry. 

"Johnny!  Johnny!"  she  whispered,  reaching 
out  both  hands.  Even  when  he  was  well  in  the 
room  she  clung  to  his  hands,  or,  releasing  the  left 
one,  softly  patted  the  back  of  the  right.  He  had 
never  before  seen  her  pale  and  unnerved.  It 
affected  him  strongly.  He  read  her  story  pretty 
well  before  she  spoke. 

79 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


There  was  only  one  chair  in  the  room.  She 
placed  that  for  him  near  the  foot  of  the  bed,  upon 
which  she  sat,  talking  to  him  across  the  footboard. 
She  whispered,  for  the  partitions  were  thin. 

"Hamilton  was  drunk,"  she  said.  "Rexford 
had  him  in  tow.  I  couldn't  get  near  him,  and  it 
wouldn't  have  done  any  good  if  I  could.  He  had 
the  keys  to  the  office  in  his  pocket.  About  seven 
o'clock  Rexford  and  he  got  in  a  carriage  and 
drove  away.  It  was  out  of  the  question  for  me 
to  get  inside  the  office  and  get  the  books  that 
way." 

"I  see,"  he  whispered  back.  He  was  thinking, 
"What  a  game  for  her  to  go  up  against — all 
alone!" 

"I  had  to  do  it  early,"  she  whispered  on,  "be- 
cause the  moon  would  be  coming  up.  And  Rex- 
ford  might  come  back  with  the  keys  any  minute 
and  get  the  books.  I  hadn't  time  to  be  careful." 
Her  lips  quivered  a  little,  as  if  she  suffered  bodily 
pain.  "They've  got  me,  Johnny!  A  man  in  the 
alley  saw  me  coming  away;  I  ran  right  into  him." 

At  her  brave  despair  the  man's  heart  was  con- 
So 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


stricted.  It  was  his  fight  even  more  than  her  own, 
and  she  had  been  fighting  it  alone.  He  bent  for- 
ward and  took  her  hand  compassionately.  "Oh, 
probably  he  was  stupid,  or  drunk,"  he  suggested 
aloud. 

She  shook  her  head.  "He  saw  me  too  plain. 
And  I  didn't  have  time  to  be  careful.  I  went  into 
two  drug  stores  and  bought  gasoline — told  'em  I 
wanted  to  clean  a  dress.  They've  got  me.  When 
you  rapped  at  the  door  I  thought  they'd  come  for 
me."  Her  voice  sank  to  a  mere  bodiless  murmur. 
"I  hate  it,  Johnny  I"  She  folded  her  arms  on  the 
footboard  and  buried  her  face  in  them — a  game 
creature  shot  through  and  through. 

Her  hair  was  roughly  combed  and  done  in  a 
thick  braid  that  hung  down  her  back.  In  that 
pose  she  looked  weak,  even  girlish.  The  man 
bent  far  forward  and  threw  an  arm  over  her 
bowed  shoulders. 

"We'll  pull  out  of  it!  I'll  stand  by  you,  part- 
ner,  till  the  cows  come  home,"  he  said  under  his 
breath,  with  passion. 

She  shivered  a  little  against  his  shoulder  for 
8 1 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


a  moment.  "You're  a  good  fellow,  Johnny,"  she 
whispered;  "but  there's  no  use  your  doing  your- 
self up  for  nothing."  She  glanced  up  into  his 
face  with  an  uncertain  smile;  then  disengaged 
herself  without  effort. 

"Rexford  will  know  in  a  minute  that  somebody 
set  it  afire,"  she  said.  "It  oughtn't  to  take  him 
long  to  find  out  who  it  was.  You  see,  it  won't 
do  either  of  us  any  good  for  you  to  be  caught 
here." 

He  saw  that  plainly  enough.  His  presence 
would  be  merely  another  link  in  the  chain  of  evi- 
dence. Nevertheless,  he  was  in  no  hurry  to  go. 

"It's  half  past  one,"  he  said,  low,  looking  at 
his  watch. 

They  heard  a  stir  in  the  next  room,  as  of  a 
wakeful  person  threshing  in  bed  or  rising.  She 
laid  her  hand  tightly  on  his  arm.  For  several 
minutes  they  fairly  held  their  breaths,  listening 
intently,  staring  at  the  thin  partition  as  though  a 
denunciatory  witness  might  step  through  it. 

It  helped  him  to  feel  the  peril  of  their  position. 

They  were  like  rats  in  a  trap  which  even  their 

82 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


own  light  breaths  might  spring.  As  he  felt  the 
peril  he  silently  raged  against  it.  After  what 
seemed  a  long  time  he  bent  over  and  whispered  in 
her  ear:  "Do  you  know  when  the  next  train  goes 
east?" 

"Ten  minutes  before  three,"  she  whispered 
back. 

"We'll  try  for  it,"  he  said  with  a  nod.  There 
was  nothing  else  to  do.  Every  moment  that  he 
stayed  in  her  room  was  dangerous.  To  attempt 
leaving  the  hotel  without  a  plausible  excuse  was 
dangerous.  He  tiptoed  to  the  door,  she  follow- 
ing. On  the  way  she  noiselessly  turned  off  the 
light.  As  noiselessly  she  opened  the  door  and 
peered  into  the  hall.  He  hated  to  leave  her  like 
that — to  be  taken,  perhaps,  in  a  few  minutes, 
while  he  sat  helplessly  by.  Her  hand  on  the  lapel 
of  his  coat  made  him  bend  his  head. 

"If  they  come  for  me,  Johnny,  don't  show 
yourself,"  she  whispered. 

That  was,  of  course,  sound  strategy — however 
much  it  looked  like  cowardice.  He  was  going  to 
say  something  back,  but  thought  better  of  it,  and 

83 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


stole  to  his  own  room.  What  he  had  been  going 
to  say  was:  "If  they  get  you,  Emma,  I'll  kill 
Hamilton."  He  really  meant  it — he  was  so  help- 
less; she  had  been  so  game;  his  own  role  looked 
so  craven ;  and  all  the  trouble  came  about  through 
the  sottish  dog  whom  he  had  taken  from  the  ditch. 
He  found  the  chair  in  his  room,  lifted  it  close  to 
the  door  with  infinite  caution  and  sat  down  where 
he  could  hear  the  least  sound  in  the  hall. 

He  hadn't  much  faith  in  their  getting  away. 
Rexford  must  guess  instantly  what  had  happened, 
and  she  had  left  a  plain  trail.  He  waited,  ex- 
pecting every  moment  to  hear  a  step  on  the  stair, 
a  summons  at  Emma's  door.  From  time  to  time 
he  tiptoed  to  the  window,  held  the  curtain  aside 
and  looked  at  his  watch.  He  listened  there,  too, 
for  any  sound  from  outside.  Once  a  horse  clat- 
tered down  the  street,  and  once  he  heard  several 
men  passing  on  the  sidewalk,  talking.  But  they 
did  not  stop.  The  town  seemed  asleep.  As  the 
time  wore  on  the  imminence  of  another  crisis 
tightened  up  his  nerves.  At  twenty  minutes  past 
two  he  left  his  room  and  walked  down  stairs.  He 

84 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


walked  right  along,  like  a  man  who  had  nothing 
to  conceal,  but  took  care  to  let  his  feet  fall  noise- 
lessly on  the  matting. 

A  hall  ran  through  the  lower  floor  of  the  hotel, 
the  dining-room  on  the  right,  the  office  and  parlor 
on  the  left.  Opposite  the  foot  of  the  stairs  a 
broad  door  opened  into  the  office.  So  far  as 
Pound  could  see,  standing  on  the  lowest  step,  the 
office  was  empty.  Certainly  it  was  perfectly  still. 
Somehow,  that  very  stillness  seemed  to  contain  a 
warning.  He  slipped  quickly  around  the  newel- 
post,  went  silently  down  the  hall  and  into  the  dim 
parlor.  There,  through  the  arched  doorway,  he 
had  a  full  view  of  the  office  from  the  rear.  The 
night  clerk  was  stretched  out  in  two  armchairs, 
his  head  tipped  back  and  his  mouth  open,  asleep. 
Humped  in  another  armchair  sat  the  man  with 
the  stick.  The  man's  chair  was  so  placed  that  he 
could  see  whoever  entered  the  hotel  either  by  the 
office  door  or  the  hall  door.  He  wasn't  whittling 
now.  Indeed,  he  was  so  motionless — huddled  in 
the  chair,  his  tattered  hat  pulled  over  his  brows 
— that  he,  too,  might  have  been  asleep.  But  as 

85 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Pound  watched  he  turned  his  head  and  spat 
silently  into  the  cuspidor.  Evidently  he  was  broad 
awake  and  still  chewing  tobacco.  Having  spat, 
the  man  raised  his  head  quickly  like  an  animal 
whose  nostrils  take  a  suspicious  scent.  Pound 
dodged  back  just  in  time.  He  knew  that  the  man 
had  felt  a  presence  and  looked  around — a  good, 
intent  hunter! 

Pound  waited  a  moment,  then  stole  back  to  the 
hall  and  took  stock  of  it.  There  was  a  door  at 
the  rear  as  well  as  at  the  front.  He  tiptoed  down 
and  cautiously  tried  the  knob,  satisfying  himself 
that  the  rear  door  was  unlocked.  He  didn't  ven- 
ture to  open  it,  but  there  must  be  some  way  from 
the  back  yard  into  the  street. 

Fifteen  minutes  later  he  came  down  the  stairs 
again,  bag  in  hand,  taking  as  much  care  now  to 
make  noise  as  he  had  taken  before  to  be  still.  He 
seemed,  indeed,  in  bad  humor.  The  clerk  was 
awake  then,  and  the  bus  was  backing  up  to  the 
door. 

"I'm  going  to  dig  out.     I  can't  get  to  sleep. 

Some  damned  thing  or  other  keeps  making  a 

86 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


noise,"  the  guest  declared.  He  spoke  loudly, 
glowering,  like  a  man  who  wanted  to  start  a  row. 
The  clerk  patiently  shrugged  his  shouldefs  and 
made  the  right  change  as  Pound,  paying  the  bill, 
complained  ill-naturedly  of  his  nerves,  of  the 
noise,  of  the  weather,  of  the  railroad.  The  man 
with  the  stick  regarded  this  unreasonable  guest 
with  merely  impersonal  curiosity.  There  was  one 
other  passenger  in  the  bus,  half  asleep.  Pound 
huddled  himself  misanthropically  in  the  farther 
corner. 

When  they  reached  the  station  it  wanted  ten 
minutes  of  train-time.  Three  passengers  besides 
himself  and  his  companion  in  the  bus  were  waiting 
on  the  platform,  but  Rexford  was  not  there. 
Walking  up  and  down,  Pound  kept  looking  off  to 
the  right  for  one  deeper  shade  in  the  shadows  of 
the  scattered  little  buildings.  He  asked  himself, 
nervously,  whether  anything  could  have  happened 
to  her  on  the  way.  Possibly,  after  all,  there  was 
no  exit  from  the  back  yard  of  the  hotel  to  the 
street.  As  soon  as  the  train  pulled  in  he  sprang 
aboard,  crossed  the  car  platform  and  looked 

87 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


along  the  other  side.  Then  he  saw  her  climbing 
up  the  step  of  the  next  car  and  hurried  to  meet 
her. 

"It  was  a  shame  to  beat  the  hotel  out  of  your 
bill,"  he  chuckled  as  he  sat  down  beside  her.  The 
train  was  already  in  motion.  They  were  getting 
away. 

"My  friend  is  still  there,  you  know,"  she  re- 
minded him.  From  his  description  of  the  man 
with  the  stick  she  had  recognized  the  person  who 
had  seen  her  leaving  the  bucketshop  just  as  the 
fire  broke  out — into  whose  arms  she  had  fairly 
run.  Both  of  them  surmised  that  he  had  traced 
her  to  the  hotel.  They  rather  suspected  that  he 
proposed  to  get  some  blood-money  out  of  it. 
Pound  reflected  that  if  he  had  known  earlier  who 
the  man  was  he  might  himself  have  dealt  with 
him  on  a  blood-money  basis,  and  he  wondered 
whether  he  hadn't  made  a  mistake  in  not  staying 
over  and  trying  it. 

Of  course,  they  had  got  away;  but  it  took  their 
train  more  than  four  hours  to  reach  St.  Paul,  and 
it  would  take  a  telegram  less  than  four  seconds 

88 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


to  intercept  them  anywhere  on  the  way.  Rex- 
ford  was  by  no  means  out  of  trumps  yet.  That 
fact  was  very  present  to  their  minds.  Emma  re- 
clined in  the  car  seat,  leaning  her  head  against 
its  back,  looking  steadily  ahead  through  lowered 
lashes. 

They  passed  the  second  way-station.  Wyan- 
dotte  was  next — from  which  she  had  set  out  twelve 
hours  before,  at  his  call,  to  fight  his  fight.  He 
kaned  over  abruptly. 

"We're  going  to  make  it!  We'll  beat  'em 
out!"  he  declared  with  conviction.  He  felt,  in 
a  measure,  out  in  the  open  where  at  least  he  could 
put  in  a  few  strokes  for  both  of  them. 

Without  moving  her  head,  smiling  a  little 
humbly,  she  looked  at  him.  "Do  you  think  so, 
Johnny?  Do  you  think  I  can  get  away?  You 
don't  know  how  I  hate  it — a  prison."  She  said 
it  quite  simply.  Someway,  it  brought  her  back 
as  she  had  looked  when  she  folded  her  arms  on 
the  footboard  of  the  bed  and  bowed  her  head,  the 
thick  braid  of  hair  down  her  back.  "It's  good  of 
you  to  stand  for  me,  anyway;  I'll  never  forget 

89 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


that,"  she  added  humbly,  and  put  out  her  hand. 

He  felt  immensely  indebted  to  her.  She  had 
made  the  fight — his  fight — single-handed,  in  spite 
of  the  odds.  From  the  moment  he  spoke  to  her 
in  the  hotel  room  it  had  been  evident  that  she 
expected  nothing  except  to  take  her  punishment, 
strictly  according  to  the  rules  of  the  game,  while 
he  got  off  free.  It  was  almost  as  though  he  had 
stood  by  and  seen  her  beaten  down,  rolled  in  the 
dust.  The  dark  eyes  that  looked  up  at  him  were 
the  eyes  of  a  woman.  At  least  since  that  evening 
in  the  Omaha  hotel  when  he  saw  her  differently 
dressed,  her  hair  done  differently,  he  had  really 
been  acutely  aware  of  her  as  a  woman — a  rounder, 
softer,  desirable  creature,  possessing  solacing 
charms.  He  felt  her  now,  acutely,  as  a  woman, 
beaten  down  and  rolled  in  the  dust  in  his  cause, 
but  quite  expecting  he  would  let  her  take  her  own 
luck,  however  bad  it  might  be,  while  he  took  his 
luck,  however  good  it  might  be. 

But  he  could  not  have  it  that  way.  He  wasn't 
that  sort.  He  caught  her  hand,  with  passion. 

"Emma,  are  you  free?    Will  you  marry  me  to- 

90 


day?"   he   demanded,   bending  toward  her,   his 
voice  vehement,  though  low. 

She  studied  him  a  moment,  apparently  with  sur- 
prise. Then  she  said  quietly:  "Yes,  I'll  marry 
you,  Johnny."  She  considered  a  moment  and 
added:  "That's  partly  what  I  went  back  tq 
Chicago  for — to  get  my  divorce  fixed  up." 


91 


CHAPTER  IV 

MR.  REXFORD  IS  DISPOSED  OF 

THE  sun  had  risen  when  they  reached  St. 
Paul.  They  took  breakfast  together  in 
the  station.  Although  they  now  felt  tol- 
erably safe  they  agreed  that  it  would  be  well  for 
her  to  spend  the  day  quietly  at  the  small  "family" 
hotel  where  she  stayed  when  she  was  there  be- 
fore. He  saw  her  to  the  cab. 

"Seven  o'clock,  then,"  he  said  as  he  held  hen 
hand. 

"Seven  o'clock,"  she  repeated,  smiling  a  little. 

It  occurred  to  him  that  it  hadn't  been  much  of 
a  betrothal — first  on  the  day  coach  of  a  railroad 
train,  then  in  the  bustling  station  restaurant. 
Nevertheless,  his  mind  was  warm.  He  felt  that 
he  was  redeeming  himself  from  the  ignominy 
which  her  daring  had  somehow  cast  upon  him, 
and  he  kept  thinking,  enticingly,  how  she  had 

looked  with  the  girlish  braid  down  her  back. 

92 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


It  was  still  early,  and  he  walked  leisurely  to 
the  office,  his  mind  pleasantly  occupied.  Mr. 
Moxley,  however,  was  down  ahead  of  him. 
Naturally,  Pound  feigned  surprise  when  the  pres- 
ident told  him  the  office  at  Long  Falls  had  burned 
during  the  night.  Yet  he  didn't  trouble  himself 
to  appear  very  much  excited  about  it,  and  pres- 
ently he  went  into  the  private  room  to  laugh  over 
the  way  Mr.  Moxley  kept  tugging  at  his  whiskers, 
as  though  he  expected  to  climb  up  his  face,  hand 
over  hand,  on  them.  The  president,  in  fact,  was 
in  a  sad  state  of  excitement.  He  could  hardly 
control  his  voice,  and  from  the  way  he  glowered 
tremulously  at  Pound  the  latter  knew  he  regarded 
him  as  no  better  than  an  abandoned  villain. 

One  thing  the  secretary  didn't  like.  He  heard 
nothing  from  Hamilton.  The  manager  might,  of 
course,  be  sleeping  off  his  debauch.  Yet  Pound 
would  have  felt  easier  if  he  had  received  word 
from  him — especially  as  toward  noon  he  saw  a 
messenger  boy  go  in  to  Mr.  Moxley  with  a  tele- 
gram. The  president  kept  mostly  to  himself  in 
the  private  room.  The  work  of  the  office  was 

93 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


light,  with  Long  Falls  out  of  business.  The  day, 
wore  dully  on.  There  was  a  train  from  Long 
Falls  at  one-twenty.  Pound  rather  expected  Mr. 
Rexford  to  appear  in  the  office  shortly  after  that 
time.  He  did  not  appear,  however,  and  that  was 
another  thing  the  secretary  didn't  like.  He  would 
rather  have  faced  the  old  pig  and  had  it  out  with 
him. 

He  was  not  very  apprehensive.  He  didn't 
think  Hamilton  would  really  go  back  on  him. 
The  incriminating  books  at  Long  Falls  were 
safely  burned.  Emma  was  safely  hidden  in  St. 
Paul.  The  losses  of  the  Wyandotte  and  Long 
Falls  offices  to  Hamilton  and  Emma  had  been 
paid — excepting,  possibly,  those  at  Long  Falls  the 
second  day  before.  The  money  was  in  the  bank 
to  his  credit  and  Emma's  and  Hamilton's.  He 
felt  rather  secure,  yet  he  would  like  to  hear  from 
Hamilton;  he  would  like  Rexford  to  appear. 

About  half-past  three  the  secretary  prepared 
leisurely  to  leave  the  office.  Then  Mr.  Moxley 
interposed. 

"Mr.  Roth,"  he  said,  looking  very  grave  and 
94 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


trying  to  keep  his  voice  from  quavering,  "I  wish 
to  see  you  here  at  five  o'clock.  I  expect  to  have 
a  very  important  communication  to  make  to  you. 
I  am  expecting,"  he  added  impressively,  "a  tele- 
gram from  Mr.  Rexford." 

"Five  o'clock?"  Pound  replied  calmly.  "I'll 
be  here." 

He  walked  out  in  a  very  pleasant  frame  of 
mind.  So  Rexford  was  still  at  Long  Falls !  Per- 
haps, after  all,  he  would  have  only  poor  old  Mox- 
ley  to  deal  with.  That  idea  made  him  smile.  It 
occurred  to  him  that  Hamilton,  also,  was  at  Long 
Falls ;  but  he  had  a  kind  of  instinctive  faith  that 
Hamilton,  while  a  weak  vessel  in  some  ways,  was 
going  to  stand  by  him  in  the  showdown.  His 
first  errand  was  at  the  marriage-license  clerk's 
office,  where  he  gave  his  true  name  and  where 
there  was  some  delay.  Then  he  bought  the  even- 
ing papers,  dropped  in  at  a  rathskeller,  and 
looked  them  over  while  he  drank  a  stein  of  beer. 
'As  he  reentered  the  bucketshop  promptly  at  five 
o'clock  his  mind  was  still  pleasantly  disposed. 
Mr.  Moxley  was  waiting  for  him,  and  silently  pre- 
95 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


ceded  him  by  a  dozen  feet  into  the  private  office. 

This  room  was  about  twelve  by  fifteen  feet.  A 
small  rolltop  desk  in  the  corner  and  an  office  table 
nearly  filled  it.  At  the  upper  right-hand  corner 
of  the  table  sat  Mr.  Rexford.  At  his  right  hand, 
about  midway  of  that  side  of  the  table,  sat  a 
stocky  stranger.  Mr.  Moxley  was  slipping  hur- 
riedly into  a  chair  at  the  lower  corner  on  the  same 
side.  At  the  upper  left-hand  corner,  across  from 
Mr.  Moxley,  sat  Hamilton,  gazing  thoughtfully 
at  the  opposite  wall.  The  only  vacant  chair  was 
at  the  lower  corner  on  Hamilton's  side,  across 
from  Mr.  Moxley. 

Pound  comprehended  instantly  that  the  scene 
had  been  carefully  set,  so  that  the  length  of  the 
table  should  divide  himself  and  Hamilton,  while 
both  of  them  would  be  always  under  the  eyes  of 
the  other  three.  In  the  same  quick,  almost  me- 
chanical way  his  eye  took  in  the  stranger — a 
heavy-set,  middle-aged  man  with  a  close-clipped, 
iron-gray  mustache,  indifferently  yet  decently 
dressed.  He  might  be  a  country  lawyer  or  a 
country  sheriff. 

96 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Yet  Pound  was  not  thinking  of  him,  nor  of  the 
arrangement  of  the  room.  He  had  hardly  looked 
at  Hamilton ;  but  the  lank,  round-shouldered  man 
completely  filled  his  mind.  It  appeared  as  though 
Hamilton  had  sold  him  out,  and  his  thought  was 
almost  pleasantly  murderous. 

"Good-afternoon,  gentlemen,"  he  said  quietly, 
but  in  a  voice  so  low  that  it  barely  carried  the 
length  of  the  room.  He  took  the  vacant  chair 
that  had  been  placed  for  him.  Whatever  the 
game  was,  he  must  play  it  out. 

For  a  moment  Rexford  glowered  malevolently 
along  the  table  at  him.  Then  he  said :  "I  Ve  come 
to  settle  up  with  you,  Roth.  I  guess  we  can  settle 
fast  enough." 

The  secretary's  steady  eyes  noted  that  Mr. 
Rexford  seemed  physically  ill.  His  fat  face  was 
a  nasty,  tallowy  white;  his  eyes  were  bloodshot; 
his  puffy  hands,  resting  on  the  table,  trembled 
slightly;  his  upper  lip,  lifting  a  little  from  the  big 
yellow  teeth,  reminded  Pound  of  a  snarling  dog. 
The  secretary  surmised  that  while  the  president 
strove  to  appear  insultingly  cool  he  was  inwardly 

91 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


boiling  with  wrath.  He  even  spoke  with  a  certain 
laboriousness,  as  though  he  were  short  of  breath. 
"I  know  just  what  you've  been  up  to,  you  d — d 
thief,"  Mr.  Rexford  continued  with  labored  cool- 
ness. "If  Moxley  hadn't  been  a  pin-headed  idiot 
he'd  have  got  on  to  you  ten  days  ago."  At  this 
compliment  Mr.  Moxley  looked  miserably  at  the 
table  and  worried  his  whiskers.  Pound  was  con- 
sidering whether  he  should  pick  up  the  inkstand 
and  hurl  it  at  Rexford's  head.  He  judged,  how- 
ever, that  it  would  be  better  to  let  the  insult  pass 
for  the  moment.  "Anybody  but  a  fool,"  Rexford 
labored  on,  "would  have  known  those  short  trades 
at  Wyandotte  and  Long  Falls  were  bogus.  Do 
you  suppose  I'd  'a'  stood  for  'em  a  minute?  Do 
you  think  you  could  'a'  stuffed  me  with  'em — as 
though  those  jays  out  there  in  the  tall  grass  would 
be  selling  five  hundred  shares  at  a  clip  and  catch- 
ing the  market  right  every  time — eh  ?  You  might 
as  well  'a'  put  your  hand  in  my  pocket  and  taken 
my  watch!  A  daylight  robber!  A  sneak  thief, 
I'd  better  call  it!"  As  he  went  on  his  rage 
got  the  upper  hand;  his  voice  rose  to  a  shout; 

98 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


he  glared,  and  struck  the  table  with  his  fist.  It 
occurred  to  Pound  that  Rexford  wanted  to  pro- 
voke him  into  starting  a  row — so,  although  he 
rather  lost  color,  he  sat  perfectly  still,  steadily 
eyeing  his  antagonist. 

Mr.  Rexford  stopped  abruptly,  out  of  breath, 
and  put  a  tremulous  hand  up  to  his  forehead.  He 
seemed,  indeed,  to  be  suffering  physically.  He 
turned  his  head  and  called  out  in  angry  affliction: 
"Moxley,  get  me  a  drink  of  water." 

Pound  found  himself  suddenly  enlightened.  He 
understood  those  bloodshot  eyes  and  tremulous 
hands,  that  parched  throat.  Mr.  Rexford  had 
been  hoist  with  his  own  petard.  In  his  anxiety 
to  get  Hamilton  sufficiently  drunk  he  had  got 
drunk  himself.  The  secretary  laughed  gently. 

"You  must  have  been  drunk  last  night,"  he 
observed  pleasantly. 

Rexford  glared  at  him  as  though  he  were  going 
to  bite — or  have  a  stroke  of  apoplexy.  But  Pound 
was  thinking  that  this  explained  their  escape  from 
Long  Falls.  No  doubt,  while  he  and  Emma  sat 
there  in  the  hotel,  like  rats  in  a  trap,  and  Rexford 

99 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


might  have  crushed  them  with  a  motion  of  his 
finger,  that  worthy  was  stretched  out,  senseless 
and  snoring.  He  laughed  again — much  as  the 
Indian  stoic  taunts  the  enemies  who  have  bound 
him  to  a  stake  and  are  lighting  the  fire  that  will 
consume  him. 

"That's  why  I  couldn't  get  Hamilton  on  the 
wire  yesterday,"  he  continued  amiably.  "You 
and  he  were  out  getting  drunk  together.  Why 
don't  you  send  out  for  an  ice-pack  to  put  on  your 
poor  old  head?"  For  a  moment  he  thought  the 
capitalist  was  going  to  throw  the  glass  at  him,  but 
the  capitalist  managed  to  control  himself. 

"All  right — sneak  thief— firebug !"  he  panted. 
"We'll  see  how  you  laugh  when  I  get  through  with 
you.  You  sent  out  phony  quotations,  and  your 
pals  played  'em — stealing  my  money.  You  dog! 
And  then  you  put  your  woman  up  to  burning  the 
Long  Falls  office  last  night— eh?  Burning  the 
office — eh?  What  does  that  come  to,  Captain? 
What's  the  penalty  for  an  incendiary?"  He  ad- 
dressed the  question  to  the  stranger  at  his  right. 

The  stranger  looked  forbiddingly  at  Pound  a 
100 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


moment  and  replied :  "In  this  state  it's  anywhere 
from  three  to  fifteen  years  in  the  penitentiary." 

"Eh?  Three  to  fifteen  years  in  the  peniten- 
tiary !"  Rexford  crowed.  "Trust  an  officer  of  the 
law  to  know  what  the  penalty  is !  And  for  the  ac- 
cessory, remember,  just  the  same  as  for  the  prin- 
cipal!" At  that  turn,  evidently,  Mr.  Rexford 
was  quite  enjoying  himself. 

Pound  turned  a  shade  paler.  His  dulled  eyes 
held  steadily  to  Rexford's  grinning  face.  With- 
out exactly  seeing  him  he  was  perfectly  aware  that 
Hamilton  sat  staring  at  the  wall,  just  as  he  had 
been  doing  ever  since  the  meeting  began — his  lean 
hands  resting  on  the  table  and  fiddling  nervously 
with  the  stump  of  a  lead-pencil. 

"Your  woman  was  a  lobster,  if  you  want  to 
know — eh?"  Rexford  went  on.  "She  was  caught 
red-handed.  If  you  want  to  know,  a  fellow 
named  Tatroe — chambermaid  in  a  livery  stable — 
saw  her  turn  the  trick — eh?  And  Tatroe  was 
waiting  at  the  hotel  to  tell  me  and  Pete  Hamilton 
all  about  it.  Ain't  that  so,  Pete?"  the  capitalist 

bawled. 

101 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


"That's  so,  Roth,"  said  Pete  solemnly.  He 
turned  his  head,  looked  Pound  in  the  eye  a  bare 
second,  then  looked  back  at  the  wall.  For  an 
instant  the  look  vaguely  puzzled  Pound,  but  the 
whole  power  of  his  mind  was  concentrated  upon 
the  pig  at  the  head  of  the  table — as  though  the 
two  had  grappled  bodily  and  were  straining  every 
muscle  for  a  throw. 

"And  what's  more,  if  you  want  to  know,"  Rex- 
ford  went  on,  "Tatroe  identified  her  the  minute 
he  saw  her  again.  And  what's  more,  she's  under 
lock  and  key  this  minute.  She's  going  to  the  pen- 
itentiary, you  dog,  and  you're  going  with  her! 
Ask  the  captain  here.  Ask  Hamilton — eh?" 

"She's  been  identified,"  said  the  captain  for- 
biddingly. "She's  safe  in  our  hands.  She  won't 
get  away." 

Pound,  however,  scarcely  heard  him.  He  re- 
membered now  that  Hamilton  had  once  gone  with 
him  to  see  Emma  at  her  little  hotel.  That  same 
hotel  would,  then,  have  been  the  first  place  to 
which  Hamilton  would  have  led  them;  they  would 

easily  have  found  Emma  there.    He  had  turned 

102 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


quite  white.  Although  his  will  struggled  in  a 
blind  sort  of  way  he  couldn't,  to  save  him,  sum- 
mon up  more  than  half  a  wit  with  which  to  meet 
this  situation.  The  greater  part  of  his  mind  was 
occupied  with  the  upper  right-hand  drawer  in 
the  small  desk  and  the  loaded  revolver  that  lay 
therein.  It  seemed  as  though  he  could  not 
breathe  or  live  again  until  he  had  stepped  over 
to  the  drawer,  picked  up  the  revolver  and  scat- 
tered Hamilton's  brains.  His  hands  gripped  the 
arms  of  the  chair.  He  labored  painfully. 

"The  penitentiary,  you  dog,  for  both  of  you," 
Rexford  repeated  after  a  moment.  "Ask  the 
captain." 

Pound  actually  felt  himself  going  over  to  the 
drawer,  and  then  he  felt  himself  still  gripping 
the  arms  of  the  chair.  No  one  spoke  for  another 
moment. 

Then  the  stranger,  whom  Rexford  called  "Cap- 
tain," bent  his  head,  looking  at  Pound  from  under 
his  eyebrows,  and  observed  distinctly:  "You  un- 
derstand, sir,  that  after  I  have  served  the  war- 
rant there  can  be  no  talk  of  compromise.  You 

103 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


will  be  in  the  hands  of  the  law  then,  and  the  law 
must  take  its  course." 

Pound's  turgid  mind  caught  the  word  "com- 
promise." He  might  have  known  that  Rexford 
was  after  money.  "What  do  you  want?"  he  de- 
manded harshly. 

"What  do  I  want,  you  sneak  thief?"  Rexford 
replied  almost  genially.  "You've  done  this  con- 
cern out  of  ten  thousand  dollars.  Hand  it  over 
to  me,  and  then  I'll  consider  what  to  do  with  you." 

"I  haven't  got  ten  thousand,"  Pound  an- 
swered. 

At  that  Hamilton  put  his  hand  to  his  bushy 
mustache  and  coughed  slightly — but  kept  on  star- 
ing at  the  wall. 

"Prove  it  to  me,"  said  Rexford  peremptorily. 
"I'll  take  what  you've  got — if  it's  enough." 

It  meant,  of  course,  going  out  stripped  to  the 
bone.  But  then,  they  had  Emma.  Pound  strug- 
gled with  it  a  moment.  He  hated  it  like  death; 
but  there  was  the  loaded  pistol  at  his  head. 

At  that  juncture  some  words  sounded  in  his  ear 
— just  as  though  somebody  had  spoken  them 

104 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


aloud — and  it  came  to  him  that  he  had  heard  the 
same  message  a  moment  before.  The  words 
were :  "Sit  tight."  Hamilton  was  softly  ticking 
them  off  with  the  point  of  his  pencil  against  the 
table. 

For  a  moment  the  secretary  did  not  move  a 
muscle,  but  sat  impassive,  slowly  refilling  his 
empty  body  with  life.  In  the  pause  the  words 
came  again:  "Sit  tight."  He  straightened  up  in  the 
chair  then  and  coughed — from  which,  he  thought, 
Hamilton  would  know  that  he  had  heard. 

"What  would  you  consider  a  fair  settlement?" 
he  asked  rather  coolly.  At  least,  he  could  gain 
time. 

His  comparative  coolness  evidently  exasperated 
Mr.  Rexford.  "Fair  settlement!"  he  roared. 
"Fair  settlement  with  a  thief  and  incendiary!  A 
fair  settlement  would  be  to  send  you  and  your 
woman  to  the  pen.  I  don't  know  but  I'll  do  it  any- 
how. I  wouldn't  mind  losing  a  few  thousand  to 
see  you  breaking  stone.  Pete  Hamilton,"  he 
demanded,  "how  much  did  they  lift  out  of  your 

office?" 

105 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Thus  directly  questioned,  Hamilton  replied 
mildly:  "Why,  I  don't  know  any  amount,  Mr. 
Rexford.  As  I  told  you  this  morning,  I  just  had 
my  suspicions.  I'm  an  honest  telegraph  operator, 
Mr.  Rexford,  and  never  did  a  crooked  thing  in 
my  life." 

"But  you  know  about  the  woman.  You  told  me 
so  yourself,"  Rexford  shouted  in  a  passion. 

"Yes,  sir,"  Hamilton  replied  mildly;  "I  know 
about  the  woman,  just  as  I  told  you.  Of  course, 
I'm  sort  of  new  at  this  business,  and  I  didn't  have 
any  suspicions  about  her  until  last  night,  when  you 
explained  things.  This  woman,  I  found  out,  came 
to  town  the  same  day  I  did  and  got  a  job  as  a  wait- 
ress in  the  hotel  dining-room.  I'd  noticed  her  be- 
cause she  was  sort  of  good-looking — about  twenty- 
five,  I  judge,  with  a  neat  figure  and  dark  com- 
plexion. I  noticed  her  all  the  more  because  she 
looked  a  little  like  a  woman  I  met  here  in  St.  Paul 
a  while  ago.  I  believe,  true's  I'm  alive,  that  that 
fellow,  George  W.  Smith,  who  sold  short  so  much 
and  just  about  busted  the  office,  was  in  cahoots 
with  her.  And  the  minute  that  man  Tatroe  told 

1 06 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


us  about  seeing  the  woman  running  away  from  the 
fire,  I  suspected  her.  So  when  we  showed  her  to 
Tatroe  he  identified  her  right  away.  Your  law- 
yer here" — he  dwelt  a  little  on  the  word,  looking 
at  the  stranger — "will  tell  you  she  yelled  like  a 
wildcat  when  he  told  her  she  could  take  her 
choice  between  staying  locked  up  in  his  office  or 
going  to  jail." 

The  stranger  colored  slightly  and  seemed  some- 
what annoyed.  Mr.  Rexford  seemed  annoyed. 
As  for  Pound,  he  put  his  hand  over  his  mouth  and 
bit  his  tongue  to  keep  from  laughing.  He  strug- 
gled a  moment.  Then  he  said: 

"Mr.  Rexford,  this  is  a  serious  case.  You've 
caught  my  female  accomplice  red-handed.  This 
legal  luminary  from  Long  Falls  is  all  ready  to 
arrest  me  and  send  me  to  the  penitentiary.  So, 
I'm  ready  to  compromise.  I'll  tell  you  what  I'll 
do.  I'll  trade  you  the  waitress  for  your  stock  in 
the  company.  I  guess  one  is  worth  about  as  much 
as  the  other." 

At  this  surprising  speech  Mr.  Rexford's  mouth 

opened  and  his  thick  lips  protruded,  while  the 

107 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


veins  swelled  up  disagreeably  on  his  bald  head. 
But  he  said  nothing.  He  seemed,  in  fact,  para- 
lyzed. The  stranger  bent  his  head  and  looked 
menacingly  at  the  secretary.  Mr.  Moxley  looked 
frightened.  Then  Pound  could  hold  in  no 
longer.  He  tipped  back  his  head  and  roared. 
Through  it  all,  Hamilton  stared  at  the  opposite 
wall. 

Rexford  was  dumfounded.  Two  minutes  be- 
fore Pound  had  been  white,  whipped  to  a  finish, 
ready  to  give  up  everything.  The  change  was  in- 
comprehensible. Nothing  had  happened  except 
Hamilton's  speech. 

"You've  thrown  me  down !"  Rexford  yelled  at 
that  person. 

"Me,  Mr.  Rexford?"  Hamilton  expostulated 
in  mild  surprise.  "I'm  an  honest  telegraph  opera- 
tor and  never  did  a  crooked  thing  in  my  life. 
Why,  Captain  Grimes  himself  will  tell  you  that 
Tatroe  identified  the  woman  as  soon  as  he  saw 
her." 

The  skill  of  Hamilton's  intervention  fairly  in- 
toxicated Pound.  He  could  just  see  the  lank  man, 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


sober  and  penitent,  returning  to  the  hotel  with 
Rexford,  there  to  find  Tatroe  with  his  description 
of  a  dark,  trim  female  incendiary.  Of  course, 
Hamilton  had  guessed  Emma  and  instantly 
thought  of  the  waitress  who  somewhat  resembled 
her.  Tatroe,  in  his  eagerness  for  the  reward,  had 
identified  the  waitress — which  would  rather  spoil 
any  identification  of  Emma  if  he  should  attempt 
one. 

Rexford  raged  on  for  a  while.  Captain  Grimes 
tried  various  bluffs.  But  it  was  increasingly  evi- 
dent to  both  of  them  that  their  weapons  had  some- 
how fallen  to  pieces  in  their  hands.  Finally, 
Pound  looked  wearily  at  his  watch. 

"I  have  an  engagement  at  seven,"  he  said. 
"I'll  make  you  just  one  proposition.  This  she- 
bang is  practically  busted  as  it  stands.  To  get  rid 
of  you,  I'll  give  you  a  thousand  dollars  for  your 
stock.  I'm  giving  you  more  than  I  should,  be- 
cause Captain  Grimes  will  have  to  pay  the  wait- 
ress or  she'll  sue  him  for  damages.  You  can  have 
two  minutes  to  accept  my  offer." 

Rexford  raged  again,  but  finally  he  accepted 
109 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


the  offer.  He  lingered  a  little  as  the  others  were 
leaving  the  office. 

"You're  a  thieving  dog,  Roth,"  he  said  as  a  final 
expression  of  the  baffled  wrath  which  consumed 
him. 

In  the  last  quarter  of  an  hour — since  the  fight 
had  been  practically  won — a  great  physical  and 
nervous  weariness  had  been  growing  upon  Pound. 
He  had  been  without  sleep  the  night  before,  and 
under  a  heavy  strain  for  more  than  thirty  hours. 
He  felt  lax  as  an  empty  sack,  and  he  regarded  the 
capitalist  with  dull  eyes.  It  wasn't  Rexford's  in- 
sult that  annoyed  him;  it  was  Rexford  himself — 
obese,  dirty,  thievish,  standing  there  in  the  way, 
glowering  disagreeably. 

Mr.  Rexford  had  spoken  over  his  shoulder,  his 
back  partly  to  Pound;  and  Pound  felt  too  com- 
pletely tired  to  reply  otherwise  than  by  taking 
a  quick  step  forward  and  projecting  his  left  foot 
with  vigor.  The  powerful  kick  sent  Rexford 
stumbling  forward  and  made  his  fat  undulate  like 
shaken  jelly.  He  uttered  a  scream,  turned  and 

made  a  wild  pass  at  Pound  which  fell  short.    Mr. 

no 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Moxley,  just  outside  the  open  door,  stood  para- 
lyzed, with  popping  eyes. 

"Come,  cornel"  said  Pound,  irritably,  as  one 
speaks  to  an  obstreperous  child.  "Do  you  want 
me  to  kick  you  all  the  way  out?  Move  along." 

Mr.  Rexford  gave  an  inarticulate  sputter,  his 
flabby  face  contorted.  But  he  moved.  Pound 
heard  him  sputtering  to  Mr.  Moxley  as  the  two 
hurried  away.  He  stepped  over  and  shut  the 
door.  It  came  to  him  vaguely  that  the  place  was 
his  now;  but  he  was  hardly  interested  in  that. 

The  clock  showed  twenty  minutes  to  seven.  He 
had  told  Emma  he  would  call  for  her  at  seven, 
and  they  were  due  at  the  minister's  at  a  quarter 
past  seven.  He  had  calculated  on  getting  an  early 
dinner,  shaving  and  changing  his  clothes.  Evi- 
dently there  was  no  time  for  that.  He  went  out- 
side and  called  a  cab.  Settling  back  in  the  vehicle 
he  realized  again  how  fearfully  tired  he  was,  and 
a  profound  reaction  came  upon  him. 

He  was  about  to  be  married,  and  the  lady  who 
would  soon  become  his  bride  was  a  crook — a  rob- 
ber and  an  incendiary.  He  was  not  delicate,  yet 

in 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


as  he  stared  dully  through  the  cab  window  without 
seeing  anything,  in  his  deep  reaction,  a  forgotten 
dream  constricted  his  tired  heart — something 
about  womanly  innocence  and  grace ;  about  a  crea- 
ture pure  and  tender,  touched  with  divinity.  His 
chin  sank  to  his  breast.  He  seemed  to  under- 
stand then  that  for  some  time  she  had  been  mean- 
ing to  marry  him,  and  that  she  had  managed  it  as 
she  managed  everything  else. 

Apparently  he  had  won.  At  any  rate  Rexford 
was  beaten,  and  the  bucketshop  was  his ;  yet  in  his 
lax  mood  a  mocking  prevision  of  failure  pervaded 
him.  He  seemed  to  see  himself,  at  the  end,  com- 
ing out  a  mere  sucker  and  gull,  as  in  the  past.  A 
strip  of  color,  across  his  coat  lapel,  obtruded  upon 
his  blank  and  downcast  eye.  Half  mechanically 
he  put  his  hand  up  to  it.  His  cravat  was  untied. 
Evidently  Rexford's  wild  pass  had  unloosened  it. 
With  fumbling  fingers  he  retied  it,  and  then  re- 
membered that  there  was  a  stubble  of  beard  on 
his  face.  He  gave  a  helpless,  contemptuous  puff 
of  laughter,  and  muttered  aloud,  "What  a  hell  of 
a  way  to  get  married  1" 

112 


CHAPTER  V 

HOW  THE   WIRE  NET   SPREAD 

THE  marriage  ceremony  which  united  John 
Pound   and  Emma   Raymond  was  per- 
formed in  the  shabby  parlor  of  the  minis- 
ter's flat,  the  minister's  fleshy  wife  and  spinsterly, 
anaemic  daughter  being  the  only  witnesses. 

The  minister  himself  had  ceased  practising  his 
calling  except  upon  some  incidental  occasions  like 
this,  where  a  fee  was  to  be  gained.  Otherwise  he 
was  trying,  without  much  success,  to  do  something 
in  the  real  estate  and  insurance  line.  For  these 
occasions  he  put  on  a  long  black  frock  coat,  and 

covered  the  shiny  dome  of  his  head  with  a  skull 
cap.  He  was  bandy-legged.  This  combination 

dully  irritated  the  bridegroom.  Pound  felt  as 
stupid  as  though  he  had  taken  a  drug,  and  a  wit- 
less sort  of  disgust  with  everything.  He  was 
secretly  humiliated  because  his  business  suit  and 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


unshaven  face  so  little  became  his  role,  while 
Emma  wore  a  very  pretty  dinner  gown  and  her 
hair  was  done  in  the  classical  way  that  made  her 
look  freshest  and  most  piquant. 

His  mind  was  so  little  collected  that  he  hardly 
followed  the  brief  ceremony.  Abruptly  he  heard 
the  minister  say:  "I  pronounce  you  man  and 
wife."  The  pause  that  followed  brought  him  up 
with  a  panicky  sense  that  something  or  other  was 
expected  of  him,  and  he  just  saved  himself  from 
blurting  out  idiotically:  "Thank  you."  But  he 
felt  Emma's  hand  touching  his  wrist.  She  was 
looking  as  a  bride  should — demure  and  charming. 
He  caught  the  cue,  so  to  speak.  Much  embar- 
rassed, he  stooped  hastily  and  kissed  her. 

He  felt  that  he  must  have  appeared  like  an  ass, 
so  he  thrust  a  twenty-dollar  bill  in  the  minister's 
hand,  with  an  illogical  notion  that  he  was  thereby 
getting  even  with  him.  Also,  going  down  the 
stairs  he  consoled  himself  for  his  own  inferior 
appearance  by  reflecting  maliciously  that  Emma 
was  up  to  the  part  because  she  had  been  through 

it  before.    The  truth  is  that,  in  his  general  dissat- 

114 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


isfaction,  he  had  a  very  stupid  inclination  to  quar- 
rel. When  the  carriage  door  closed  upon  them 
he  addressed  his  wife  for  the  first  time,  saying 
quite  crossly:  "I'm  hungry  as  a  bear." 

Emma  read  his  state  of  mind  like  an  open  book. 
She  knew  his  nerves  were  frayed,  and  quite  com- 
prehended that  reaction  which  made  him  dis- 
gusted with  everything,  herself  included.  So  she 
said  cheerfully:  "All  right,  Johnny.  We'll  drive 
uptown  and  have  a  swell  feed."  In  a  moment  she 
added  quite  as  cheerfully:  "We  might  take  Ham 
along;  have  a  real  party.  Would  you  like  to?" 
He  smiled  a  little  in  a  shamefaced  way,  secretly 
acknowledging  that  she  was  the  better  fellow  of 
the  two. 

They  did  pick  Hamilton  up  at  his  hotel. 
Emma  managed  the  dinner,  and  the  little  party 
was  a  complete  success.  At  the  end  of  the  second 
bottle  of  champagne  Pound  was  not  only  genial, 
but  admired  his  clever  wife  so  much  that  he  was 
fairly  falling  in  love  with  her.  She  had  a  special 
gift  of  managing  some  people. 

The  next  day  was  Saturday.    Naturally,  Pound 

Us 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


was  busy  at  the  bucketshop  which  had  just  come 
into  his  possession.  But  Sunday  the  bride  and 
groom  might  freely  devote  to  each  other. 

Accordingly,  directly  after  breakfast,  they  drew 
up  side  by  side  at  the  small,  round-topped  center 
table  in  the  parlor  of  the  little  suite  at  the  family 
hotel  which  Emma  had  engaged  for  their  tempo- 
rary occupancy.  Before  them  a  railroad  folder 
containing  a  large  colored  map  of  the  Northwest 
was  outspread,  and  a  stout,  blackbound  volume, 
entitled  Report  of  the  Comptroller  of  the  Cur- 
rency, lay  at  the  edge  of  the  table. 

With  these  articles  they  began  their  honey- 
moon. They  followed  the  red  line  of  the  railroad 
along  the  map,  and  looked  up  the  towns  in  the 
report  to  see  how  much  ready  cash  each  possessed. 
Presently  Hamilton  joined  them. 

"What  I  want,"  said  Pound  with  authority,  "is 
the  nice  country  towns  of  twenty-five  hundred  in- 
habitants up  to  five  thousand  or  so;  towns  with 
a  couple  of  hundred  thousand  dollars  of  bank 
deposits  and  from  that  up  to  a  million — just  nice, 

fat,  fresh  little  country  centers  that  have  never 

116 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


had  a  stock  wire  in  'em."  He  pronounced  the 
words,  very  much  as  a  hungry  gormand  might 
speak  of  fine,  plump,  hand-fed  young  pig,  roasted 
to  a  beautiful,  tender  brown,  with  pan  gravy  and 
new  apple-sauce  and  mealy  baked  sweet  potatoes, 
"You  see,  this  whole  country  was  broke  all 
through  the  hard  times."  He  swept  his  hand 
over  the  map.  "For  three  or  four  years  nobody 
had  any  money.  Then,  the  last  two  years,  money 
has  been  piling  up.  Everybody's  got  some.  You 
know  if  a  man's  been  half  starved  to  death  he 
must  be  fed  a  while  before  he  gets  back  his  appe- 
tite. They've  just  fairly  got  their  appetite  back. 
And  in  the  last  two  years  there's  been  a  tremen- 
dous rise  in  stocks;  millionaires  have  been  grow- 
ing on  bushes.  The  newspapers  have  been  full  of 
it.  You  can  bet  these  people  out  here" — he  laid 
his  hand  on  the  map — "have  been  reading  all 
about  it.  They  know  the  way  to  get  rich  fast  is 
to  buy  stocks.  But  they  haven't  had  a  chance  to 
get  into  the  game.  There's  never  been  a  wire 
anywhere  near  'em.  To  their  minds  the  stock  ex- 
change is  a  kind  of  paradise  away  off  on  the  other 

117 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


side  of  the  world.  When  we  open  up  a  fine  little 
stock  exchange  right  at  hand,  so  they  can  drop  in 
on  the  way  to  the  post-office,  you  bet  they'll  drop. 
We  want  to  plant  one  in  every  good  town  from 
here  to  the  coast." 

Hamilton  had  been  tugging  at  his  bushy  red 
mustache  thoughtfully.  "Don't  see  how  you're 
going  to  make  it  with  a  bank  roll  of  eight  thou- 
sand, old  man,"  he  observed,  with  good  humor. 
"It  takes  money  to  start  the  game;  and  every  town 
you  open  takes  that  much  more." 

"A  little  more,"  Pound  assented.  "We've  got 
to  reach  every  branch  office  with  our  own  private 
wire,  and  that's  what  takes  the  money.  The  only 
capital  a  bucketshop  needs  is  just  wire.  If  the 
telegraph  company  would  give  me  credit  I'd  cover 
the  country  with  bucketshops  on  a  hundred-dollar 
bill.  Unfortunately  it  won't.  Here's  the  deal: 
For  a  private  wire,  the  company  charges  us  twenty 
dollars  a  year  on  each  mile  of  wire.  When  they 
have  a  wire  already  strung  that  they  can  lease  us, 
they  make  us  pay  only  a  month's  rent  in  advance. 

But  where  they  have  to  build  a  new  wire,  as  they 

118 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


will  here,  they  make  us  plank  down  six  months' 
rent  in  advance — ten  dollars  spot  cash  for  every 
mile  of  wire.  For  every  town  where  they  put  in 
a  drop  from  our  wire  to  our  office  they  charge  us 
forty-two  dollars  a  month.  Here  in  St.  Paul  we 
have  to  pay  'em  thirty-five  dollars  a  week  for  our 
drop  from  the  C.  N.  D.  wire  over  which  we  get  the 
New  "York  Stock  Exchange  quotations  direct,  and 
twelve  dollars  a  week  for  a  ticker.  But  the  big 
item  is  that  ten  dollars  a  mile  for  the  new  wire. 
We've  already  got  a  hundred  miles  of  wire.  I 
figure  we  can  get  right  away  three  hundred  miles 
more.  That  will  take  three  thousand  dollars." 

"That,"  said  Hamilton,  "leaves  you  only  five 
thousand  dollars  out  of  your  eight.  And  every 
place  where  you  open  an  office  you've  got  to  have 
a  bank  roll  to  start  with." 

"Why?"  Pound  inquired.  "Our  business  is 
taking  bets  on  stocks  and  grain.  Our  customers 
— the  fellows  that  make  the  bets— put  up  money 
on  every  bet;  but  we  don't  put  up  any,  do  we? 
Not  at  all.  So  we'll  just  let  our  customers  furnish 
us  our  working  capital.  John  Smith,  of  Wyan- 

119 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


dotte,  thinks  Union  Pacific  will  go  up.  So  he 
comes  into  our  office  and  buys  a  hundred  shares 
— that  is,  he  bets  with  us  that  the  stock  will  rise. 
We  make  John  put  up  a  cash  margin  of  two  dol- 
lars a  share,  or  two  hundred  dollars  on  the  trade. 
We  don't  put  up  a  cent.  Multiply  John  by  a 
hundred,  and  we've  got  twenty  thousand  dollars 
cash  in  hand.  If  John  loses,  as  we  hope,  we  keep 
the  twenty  thousand.  If  all  the  Johns  should  win 
at  once,  the  best  we  could  do  would  be  to  hand 
them  back  their  own  twenty  thousand.  But  John 
won't  win.  He  never  does. 

"I  haven't,"  Pound  continued,  smiling  good- 
naturedly,  "been  figuring  out  ways  to  beat  a  buck- 
etshop  the  last  six  months  without  getting  some 
ideas  about  the  business.  Nobody  is  going  to  put 
over  crooked  quotations  on  me  the  way  we  put 
'em  over  on  Rexford.  Every  order  that's  handed 
into  a  branch  office  will  be  wired  to  the  main  office 
here  in  St.  Paul  and  confirmed  here  before  it  is 
filled.  More  than  that,  all  the  margin  money  is 
going  to  be  wired  to  the  main  office  every  day.  I 
propose  to  have  the  game  in  my  own  hands." 

120 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Emma  smiled  slightly.  Her  dark,  intelligent 
eyes  rested  upon  her  husband  with  approval. 
Nevertheless,  her  heart  was  a  little  sore.  She 
noticed  that  he  now  spoke  of  the  venture  with 
authority,  as  though  it  were  his  own  individual 
affair — although  certainly  she  had  borne  no  slight 
share  in  nursing  it  up  to  its  present  stature.  She 
had  always  instinctively  believed  in  Pound's 
power,  even  when  he  was  a  mere  under-doggy 
telegraph  operator  at  eighty  dollars  a  month.  It 
now  occurred  to  her  that,  perhaps,  he  was  going 
to  be  more  powerful  than  she  had  supposed — so 
powerful  that  a  helpmate  would  be  rather  super- 
fluous to  him. 

Thoughtfully  surveying  the  map,  he  seemed, 
indeed,  a  very  efficient,  confident  kind  of  person. 
"Here's  where  our  game  lies,"  he  said,  laying  his 
hand  on  the  highly-colored  surface.  "And  here's 
where  I  want  you,  Ham — out  in  the  country  open- 
ing up  these  branch  offices,  getting  the  game 
started."  Gazing  thoughtfully  down  at  the  green, 
blue  and  yellow  spaces  that  represented  great 
states,  he  fairly  saw  endless  grain  fields,  countless 

121 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


herds,  many  thriving  rural  centers,  each  with  its 
well-stored  little  bank.  The  vision  captivated  his 
mind.  "There's  a  million  dollars  of  loose  cash 
out  there  this  minute  just  waiting  to  be  taken  in," 
he  said  almost  solemnly. 

Monday  morning  of  the  week  following  this 
conversation,  Hamilton  and  a  chubby,  swarthy  tel- 
egraph operator  named  Brewer  dropped  off  the 
west-bound  train  at  Bremen.  It  was  a  thrifty 
town  of  three  thousand  inhabitants,  lying  in  a  fat, 
rolling,  sparsely-wooded  prairie.  Little  Turtle 
River  wound  sluggishly  along  the  west  border  be- 
tween a  thin  fringe  of  trees.  A  large  frame  grist 
mill  painted  yellow  stood  on  the  bank  of  the  river. 
There  were  two  tall,  red  grain  elevators  near  the 
railroad  track;  two  banks,  two  hotels.  A  number 
of  the  frame  dwellings  were  so  new  that  the 
shingles  fairly  shone  in  the  sun.  It  appeared  very 
good  to  Hamilton,  who  carried,  besides  his  suit 
case,  a  long,  odd-looking  roll  of  stout  cloth. 

The  task  before  the  travelers  was  quite  simple. 
While  Hamilton  strolled  about  looking  for  a 

suitable  office,  Brewer  drifted  down  to  the  rail- 

122 


road  station,  introduced  himself  to  the  telegraph 
operator  as  a  fellow-craftsman,  explained  that 
they  were  about  to  open  a  stock  exchange,  with  a 
private  wire  from  St.  Paul,  and  proceeded  to  es- 
tablish friendly  relations.  What  he  really  wanted 
was  to  find  out  whether  anybody  thereabouts  was 
given  to  speculating  in  grain  or  stocks.  Of 
course,  the  operator,  who  handled  the  messages, 
would  know. 

Before  noon  Hamilton  had  rented  an  office 
above  a  millinery  shop  in  a  small  frame  building 
on  East  Street.  It  consisted  of  a  single  bare  room 
about  twenty  feet  square.  A  room  of  the  same 
size  at  the  rear — the  two  comprising  the  whole 
upper  story — was  occupied  by  a  justice  of  the 
peace,  insurance  agent,  conveyance,  notary  public 
and  real-estate  dealer — all  covered  by  the  same 
well-worn  alpaca  office  jacket.  The  rent  was 
twelve  dollars  a  month. 

"George  Lewis  is  our  man,"  said  Brewer  when 
the  two  met  at  the  Bremen  House  for  the  midday 
meal.  "He  takes  a  flyer  in  grain  every  now  and 

then.     Sends  his  orders  to  Chappell  in  Minnea- 

123 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


polls.  Seems  he  owns  a  farm  a  few  miles  out — 
mortgaged  up  to  the  hilt — but  stays  in  town  most 
of  the  time  buying  hogs  to  ship;  quite  a  sporty 
farmer — plays  poker  just  well  enough  to  lose ;  but 
knows  everybody  and  is  popular." 

"That  sounds  like  it,"  Hamilton  commented. 
"Fetch  him  up  to  the  office  about  two  o'clock." 

After  the  midday  dinner  Hamilton  walked 
across  the  street  to  the  neat  two-story  brick  build- 
ing of  the  First  National  Bank.  He  noted  that 
institution's  shiny  plate-glass  windows,  tile  floor, 
polished  oak  counter  and  neat  brass  wickets  for 
the  cashier  and  the  teller — all,  as  he  mentally  com- 
mented with  approval,  very  nobby  and  prosper- 
ous-looking. 

"Mr.  Miles?"  he  inquired  amiably  of  the  young 
sandy  man  behind  the  cashier's  wicket — having 
got  his  description  from  the  hotel  clerk.  He  laid 
down  his  card : 

MOXLEY  STOCK  AND  GRAIN  COMPANY 


P.  F.  HAMILTON 

GENERAI     AGENT 

124 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


"I  believe  your  correspondent  in  St.  Paul  is  the 
Norse  National  Bank,"  he  continued — having 
looked  that  up  in  a  bankers'  directory.  "We  are 
about  to  open  a  stock  and  grain  commission  office 
here  in  Bremen,  Mr.  Miles,  with  our  own  private 
wire  from  St.  Paul.  We  expect  to  do  considerable 
banking  business  and  will  give  you  the  account  if 
we  can  make  satisfactory  terms." 

To  the  rear  of  the  banking  office  proper  was  a 
small  room  with  the  sign  "President"  over  its 
door.  A  middle-aged  man  in  his  shirt  sleeves, 
with  hair  prematurely  gray  and  face  prematurely 
wrinkled,  now  stepped  to  the  door  which  led  from 
this  room  to  the  space  behind  the  counter.  Evi- 
dently he  had  overheard,  for  he  regarded  Ham- 
ilton with  lackluster  and  suspicious  blue  eyes. 
This,  as  Hamilton  knew  from  the  hotel  clerk's 
description,  was  Mr.  Barlow,  the  president  of  the 
bank.  The  young  cashier  looked  around  at  his 
superior  inquiringly,  and  Mr.  Barlow  came  de- 
liberately up  to  the  counter  with  the  air  of  a  man 
who  has  been  invited  to  buy  a  gold  brick  which 
shows  broad  patches  of  cast  iron  where  the  gilding 

125 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


has  worn  off.     He  picked  up  Hamilton's  card 
frigidly. 

"When's  your  private  wire  going  to  be  in 
here?"  he  inquired  very  dryly. 

"The  telegraph  company  promises  us  to  have 
it  in  here  by  noon  tomorrow,"  Hamilton  replied 
promptly.  "They're  stringing  it  as  fast  as  possi- 
ble." 

This  answer  seemed  to  surprise  Mr.  Barlow. 
He  regarded  Hamilton  closely  a  moment,  but  the 
latter's  face  was  bland  and  open.  "What  arrange- 
ments do  you  want  to  make?"  the  banker  asked  a 
little  less  ungraciously. 

"First,"  said  Hamilton  amiably,  "I  want  some 
advice  from  you.  You  see,  we  put  the  local  office 
entirely  in  the  hands  of  some  well-known  local 
man.  That's  the  best  guaranty  we  can  possibly 
give  that  the  business  is  absolutely  on  the  square. 
Now,  for  manager  of  this  office  Mr.  George 
Lewis  has  been  recommended  to  us.  You  can 
understand  it's  very  important  to  us  to  pick 
the  right  sort  of  man.  What  do  you  think  of 
Lewis?" 

126 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


That  the  office  was  to  be  managed  by  a  local 
man  seemed  to  surprise  Mr.  Barlow  still  more. 
"Why,  Lewis  is  pretty  deep  in  debt,"  he  replied 
— for  the  first  time  addressing  Hamilton  as  one 
of  the  fraternity  of  business  men.  "He's  slow 
pay.  But  I  always  considered  him  honest." 

"That's  all  I  want  to  know,"  said  Hamilton 
heartily.  "If  a  man's  honest  we'll  take  our 
chances  on  everything  else.  Now,  our  arrange- 
ment is  just  this:  As  our  customers  here  give 
Mr.  Lewis  orders  to  buy  or  sell  stocks  and  grain 
they  will  put  in  his  hands  the  money  to  margin  the 
trades.  Every  day,  or  perhaps  several  times 
a  day,  Mr.  Lewis  will  deposit  that  margin  money 
in  your  bank,  and  you  will  immediately  transfer 
it  by  telegraph  to  the  Norse  National  Bank  in 
St.  Paul  for  our  credit.  Or  if  Mr.  Lewis  should 
need  at  any  time  to  pay  out  here  more  than  he 
has  received,  he  will  wire  us,  we  will  deposit  the 
money  with  the  Norse  National,  which  will  trans- 
fer it  by  telegraph  to  you  and  you  will  then  pay 
it  over  to  Mr.  Lewis.  We,  of  course,  will  pay 
all  telegraph  charges,  and  we  will  allow  you  an 

127 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


exchange  fee  of  twenty-five  cents  for  every  hun- 
dred dollars  that  you  handle." 

This  was  Pound's  system.  Under  it  all  margin 
money  paid  in  at  the  local  offices  was  immediately 
transferred  by  wire  to  St.  Paul.  Thus  the  total 
cash  resources  of  the  concern  were  constantly  in 
his  own  hands.  Thus,  also,  the  worst  a  local  man- 
ager could  do  would  be  to  embezzle  the  receipts 
of  a  single  day.  Pound  was  willing  to  take  his 
chances  of  that  for  the  sake  of  having  a  man  who 
was  well  known  in  the  community  to  manage  each 
local  office.  As  Hamilton  truly  said,  it  impressed 
the  community  with  a  sense  of  the  company's  good 
faith  as  nothing  else  could. 

Obviously  there  wasn't  much  in  this  arrange- 
ment for  the  bank.  It  received  merely  a  modest 
exchange  fee  for  transferring  the  money.  But  if 
the  First  National  didn't  take  the  business  on 
those  terms,  probably  the  State  Bank  over  on 
West  Street  would.  So  Mr.  Barlow  took  it. 

Shortly  after  two  o'clock  Brewer  climbed  the 
stairs  leading  to  the  office  over  the  millinery  shop 

accompanied  by  a  man  in  the  grime  of  life,  whose 

128 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


portly  figure  suggested  good  cheer  in  spite  of  the 
blue  flannel  shirt,  baggy  trousers  and  shapeless 
coat  that  covered  it.  His  round  face  was  lighted 
by  a  pair  of  merry  blue  eyes  and  adorned  with  a 
curly  yellow  beard. 

They  found  Hamilton  in  his  shirt  sleeves  stand- 
ing on  a  kitchen  chair.  He  had  impressed  Zeke, 
the  colored  porter  at  the  Bremen  House,  and  the 
two  .were  pasting  that  long  roll  of  cloth  to  the 
wall.  The  face  of  the  cloth  was  painted  black 
and  ruled  in  narrow,  perpendicular  columns.  At 
the  top  of  each  column  were  the  code  letters  which 
designated  stocks— as  ACP,  BO,  UP,  NP.  At 
one  end  was  a  space  for  grain  quotations. 

Besides  this  blackboard-cloth,  the  room  now 
contained  six  plain  wooden  chairs  and  a  small 
kitchen  table,  for  which  Hamilton  had  just  paid 
four  dollars  and  seventy-five  cents  at  the  furniture 
store  across  the  way.  He  had  also  bought  thirty 
cents'  worth  of  chalk  at  the  drug  store  and  paid 
one  month's  rent  in  advance.  Therefore,  seven- 
teen  dollars  and  five  cents  constituted  the  Moxley  ; 
Stock  and  Grain  Company's  total  investment  in  i 

129 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Bremen.       Naturally,     the     company     expected 
Bremen  to  invest  far  more  than  that  with  it. 

Hamilton  nodded  genially.  At  the  very  first 
glance  he  thoroughly  approved  of  George  Lewis. 
"Just  a  minute,"  he  said.  "I  never  was  much  of 
a  wall  decorator  myself."  Hopping  down  from 
the  chair,  he  wiped  his  pasty  right  hand  on  the 
leg  of  his  trousers  and  extended  it  to  the  prospec- 
tive manager.  They  sat  down  comfortably  and 
Hamilton  explained  how  simple  the  business  was. 
Mr.  Lewis  was  to  take  charge  of  the  office.  For 
example,  a  man  came  in  and  wanted  to  buy  fifty 
shares  of  Northern  Pacific.  Mr.  Lewis  would 
require  him  to  put  up  the  usual  cash  margin  of 
two  dollars  a  share  and  then  hand  the  order  to 
Brewer,  who  would  wire  it  to  the  main  office.  The 
main  office  would  confirm  it,  and  that  was  all  there 
was  to  it.  At  the  end  of  the  day  Mr.  Lewis  would' 
take  the  man's  hundred  dollars  and  whatever 
other  margin  money  he  had  received  over  to  the 
bank.  If  Northern  Pacific  went  up,  and  the  man 
wanted  to  draw  out  his  winnings,  and  Mr.  Lewis 
didn't  have  enough  money  on  hand,  he  would  wire 

130 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


the  main  office,  which  would  wire  out  the  money, 
and  Mr.  Lewis  would  pay  the  man  off.  If  any 
technical  points  came  up  that  Mr.  Lewis  was 
doubtful  about,  Brewer  could  put  him  right,  or 
would  wire  the  main  office  for  instructions.  On 
every  order  the  office  charged  a  commission  of 
twenty-five  cents  a  share.  Mr.  Lewis'  compensa- 
tion would  consist  of  one-half  of  all  the  commis- 
1  sions.  If  he  got  orders  for  only  a  hundred  shares 
a  day,  his  compensation  would  be  twelve  dollars 
and  a  half  a  day;  if  he  got  orders  for  a  thousand 
shares  daily  he  would  make  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  dollars  a  day.  His  profit,  in  short, 
would  depend  simply  upon  his  success  in  working 
up  trade  for  the  bucketshop. 

Listening  attentively  to  Hamilton's  explana- 
tion, the  prospective  manager  slipped  a  couple  of 
silver  dollars  back  and  forth  between  his  chubby 
fingers. 

"When  do  you  expect  to  have  this  private  wire 
working?"  he  inquired  presently. 

Hamilton  assured  him  the  wire  would  be  in 
town  the  next  day,  and  this  answer  impressed 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


him  as  much  as  it  had  impressed'  Mr.  Barlow. 

They  discovered,  in  fact,  that  the  private  wire 
was  a  trump  card.  That  stock  quotations  made  in 
far  off  New  York,  and  grain  quotations  from 
Chicago,  should  be  brought  right  there  to 
Bremen  as  fast  as  electricity  could  carry  them 
gave  rise  to  quite  exaggerated  notions  of  the 
power  of  the  bucketshop.  Indeed,  in  Bremen  and 
other  towns,  many  customers  innocently  presumed 
from  this  commonplace  telegraphic  phenomenon 
that  the  little  bucketshop  must  be  essentially  one 
with  the  New  York  Stock  Exchange  and  the 
Chicago  Board  of  Trade. 

Before  supper-time  that  day  Brewer  managed 
to  spend  a  sociable  half  hour  with  the  local  tele- 
graph operator  over  a  bottle  of  beer.  He  re- 
turned to  the  hotel  grinning.  The  operator  told 
him  that  Mr.  Barlow  had  been  down  to  the  sta- 
tion inquiring  about  that  private  wire;  would  be 
satisfied  with  nothing  less  than  official  assurance 
that  the  telegraph  company  was  stringing  a  ver- 
itable wire  from  St.  Paul  to  Bremen  for  the  use 

of  the  Moxley  Stock  and  Grain  Company. 

132 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


At  this  recital  Hamilton  pricked  up  his  ears. 
"H'm,"  he  speculated,  "so  Brother  Barlow's  sort 
of  interested,  is  he?  Brother  Barlow's  sort  of 
interested."  Thoughtfully  pulling  at  his  bushy 
mustache,  he  added,  in  a  casual  way:  "Nice,  fat 
little  bank  he's  got  over  there." 

After  supper  Mr.  Lewis  dropped  in,  brimming 
with  his  new  managership,  and  they  strolled  down 
the  street  to  Joe  Hartwick's  Sample  Room,  where 
acquaintance  might  be  made.  Already,  it  ap- 
peared, news  that  Bremen  was  to  have  a  stock 
exchange  with  a  real  private  wire  from  St.  Paul — 
or  Chicago  or  New  York — had  more  or  less  gone 
abroad.  Among  the  sporty  habitues  of  the  sam- 
ple room,  Hamilton  and  Barlow  were  as  much 
objects  of  curiosity  as  though  they  had  been  bring- 
ing a  circus  and  a  faro  bank  to  town.  One  of 
the  first  persons  to  whom  Lewis  introduced  the 
general  agent  was  Mr.  S.  Bloom,  Jr. 

Earlier  in  the  day  Hamilton's  thrifty  eye  had 
fallen  upon  the  establishment  of  S.  Bloom  &  Co. 
— dry-goods,  clothing,  hats,  caps,  boots,  shoes- 
occupying  the  first  and  second  floors  of  the  largest 

133 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


brick  building  in  town.  The  hotel  clerk  had  told 
him,  indeed,  that  it  was  the  largest  brick  building 
in  the  county,  and  the  same  friendly  informant 
had  pointed  out  S.  Bloom,  Sr. — a  short,  round, 
sad-looking  man  of  fifty,  whose  dim  eyes  seemed 
weary,  and  whose  fat  shoulders  stooped  as 
though  he  bore  heavy  burdens. 

Not  the  least  of  the  burdens  of  S.  Bloom,  Sr., 
was  S.  Bloom,  Jr.,  whom  Lewis  and  the  others  in 
the  sample  room  called  Solly.  He  was  a  chubby, 
debonair  young  man  in  loud  clothes.  A  pearl  of 
size  adorned  his  necktie,  and  on  each  hand  he 
wore  a  solitaire  diamond  ring.  Hamilton  knew 
instantly  that  Solly  was  Bremen's  leading  sport. 
To  Hamilton  he  spoke  familiarly  of  various  re- 
sorts of  the  sporty  in  St.  Paul  and  Minneapolis, 
and  he  took  care  early  to  let  the  general  agent 
know  that  he  had  been  in  New  York — in  Wall 
Street,  and  even  in  the  Stock  Exchange  itself.  In- 
deed, as  the  sampling  progressed  he  spoke  in  an 
offhand,  familiar  way  of  Morgan,  Rockefeller 
and  other  potentates  of  the  "Street."  Hamilton 
good-naturedly  indulged  Solly's  innocent  affecta- 

134 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


tion  of  being  on  the  inside.  He  judged  that  Solly 
alone  could  be  depended  upon  to  pay  the  wire 
rental  and  running  expenses. 

The  next  forenoon  Hamilton  went  over  to  the 
bank. 

"Well,  Mr.  Barlow,"  said  the  general  agent 
from  the  threshold,  as  though  he  were  merely 
passing,  "those  linemen  are  slow.  They're  just 
getting  into  town  with  our  wire  now.  Guess  it 
will  be  too  late  to  do  any  business  today  by  the 
time  they  get  us  connected  up." 

"Just  getting  into  town,  eh?"  said  Mr.  Bar- 
low. "Well,  you  can't  hurry  them  big  corpora- 
tions. They  take  their  own  time.  Come  in." 

The  general  agent  sat  down  opposite  the 
banker.  Presently,  following  Mr.  Barlow's  cau- 
tious leads,  he  was  vigorously  expounding  his 
views  of  the  stock  market — lugging  in  that  wise- 
sounding  and  easily-acquired  patter  of  the  trade 
which  any  bright  office  boy  can  soon  learn  to  reel 
off  by  the  yard. 

"Now,  Mr.  Hamilton,"  Mr.  Barlow  said  pres- 
ently, looking  the  agent  in  the  eye,  "here's  what 

135 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


I'd  like  to  have  explained  to  me.  Your  concern 
is  a  bucketshop."  He  pronounced  the  word 
firmly,  as  though  he  defied  contradiction.  "You 
don't  really  execute,  on  the  Stock  Exchange,  the 
orders  you  receive.  If  I  buy  a  hundred  shares  of 
Northern  Pacific,  you  just  put  that  order  on  your 
books,  and  take  the  chances  that  Northern  Pacific 
will  go  down,  and  I'll  lose  my  money.  But  if 
Northern  Pacific  goes  up,  you  lose;  you  have  to 
pay  me  whatever  amount  the  stock  advances. 
Now,  suppose  a  whole  lot  of  people  buy  stocks 
of  you,  and  those  stocks  go  up,  as  you  say  they're 
bound  to.  That  will  let  you  in  for  a  tremendous 
loss.  How  can  you  stand  it?" 

Hamilton  craned  his  neck  to  look  into  the 
outer  room,  as  though  he  feared  they  might  be 
overheard. 

"The  truth  is,  Mr.  Barlow,"  he  said— strictly 
between  themselves — "a  bucketshop  that's  man- 
aged properly  is  the  safest  thing  in  the  world.  In 
the  first  place,  about  two-thirds  of  our  orders  just 
cancel  each  other,  because,  while  some  buy,  others 
sell.  You  buy  a  hundred  shares  of  Northern  Pa- 

136 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


cific;  but  Mr.  Miles  in  there  sells  a  hundred 
shares.  If  you  win,  he  loses;  if  he  wins,  you  lose. 
In  one  case  we  just  hand  your  money  over  to  him ; 
in  the  other  we  simply  hand  his  money  over  to 
you.  But  we  charge  a  commission  of  twenty-five 
cents  a  share.  We  charge  you  twenty-five  dollars 
commission  on  the  hundred  shares  you  buy,  and 
we  charge  him  twenty-five  dollars  commission  on 
the  hundred  shares  he  sells.  So  at  the  end  of  the 
deal  we're  just  fifty  dollars  ahead.  Confidentially, 
that's  the  way  it  works.  Look  at  all  the  trades 
on  the  New  York  Stock  Exchange.  Every  time 
one  man  buys  another  man  must  sell,  or  there 
couldn't  be  any  trade.  That's  why  we  want  so 
many  branch  offices,  do  you  see?  For,  while 
most  of  the  people  in  one  locality  may  be  bullish, 
most  of  them  in  another  locality  will  be  bearish. 
But  suppose  we  find  we're  getting  overloaded  on 
one  side  or  the  other.  Our  books  for  example, 
show  at  a  certain  time  that  our  bullish  customers 
have  bought  fifty  thousand  shares  of  Northern 
Pacific  with  us,  while  our  bearish  customers  have 
sold  only  thirty  thousand  shares.  If  Northern 

137 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Pacific  should  go  up  we'd  be  let  in  for  a  big  loss 
on  that  uncovered  twenty  thousand  shares.  So 
we  simply  hedge  it — that  is,  we  send  down  to  New 
York  and  buy  for  our  own  account  twenty  thou- 
sand shares  of  Northern  Pacific  on  the  Stock  Ex- 
change. A  little  figuring  will  show  you  that  we 
make  our  commission  of  twenty-five  cents  a 
share  on  the  thirty  thousand  shares  that  our  cus- 
tomers buy  and  the  thirty  thousand  that  they  sell, 
and  as  we've  hedged  the  odd  twenty  thousand 
shares  we  can't  possibly  lose  enough  to  hurt  us. 
Between  ourselves  it's  the  surest  business  in  the 
world." 

Later  in  the  day,  in  relating  this  conversation 
to  Brewer — who  was  perfectly  well  aware  that 
over  nine-tenths  of  a  bucketshop's  country  cus- 
tomers invariably  bought,  or  "went  long,"  and 
that  a  bucketshop  almost  never  hedged — Hamil- 
ton observed:  "And  the  sucker  actually  swallowed 
that  yarn,  bait,  hook  and  sinker.  It's  really  these 
wise  boys,  who  think  they  know  a  lot,  that  make 
the  best  picking." 

The  general  agent's  imaginative  explanation 
138 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


seemed,  indeed,  to  resolve  Mr.  Barlow's  doubts. 
He  began  speaking  discursively  about  the  great 
rise  in  stocks  during  the  last  two  or  three 
years. 

Presently,  in  a  reminiscent  sort  of  way  that 
was  half-fond,  half-sad,  he  remarked:  "I  know 
a  man — cousin  of  my  wife's,  in  fact.  He  was 
doing  a  little  chattel  loan  business  down  in  Kan- 
sas, Never  seemed  to  me  he  had  any  great  busi- 
ness ability,  either."  He  smiled  deprecatingly. 
"Well,  sir,  along  in  '98,  somehow  that  fellow  got 
a  notion  of  buying  Atchison  preferred;  bought 
it  around  twenty-five  and  hung  on  to  it,  and 
doubled  up.  He  sold  out  his  Atchison  a  little 
while  ago  around  ninety;  cleaned  up  ninety  thou- 
sand dollars.  He  and  his  wife's  gone  to  Europe 
now."  Mr.  Barlow  smiled  again,  humbly  con- 
fessing his  own  comparative  failure. 

He  then  opened  a  drawer  in  his  desk  and  took 
out  a  well-filled  box  of  prime  five-cent  cigars. 
This  was  his  extremest  form  of  geniality.  Ham- 
ilton winced,  but  took  one  of  the  cigars  and 
lighted  it,  while  Mr.  Barlow  lighted  another, 

139 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


leaned  back  and  puffed  deliberately.  Thus,  so  to 
speak,  letting  himself  go,  he  inquired  with  a 
rather  incidental  air:  "What  do  you  think  about 
this  Amalgamated  Copper?" 

Hamilton  had  never  thought  anything  about  it 
before;  but  he  now  discovered  that  he  held  an 
extremely  high  opinion  of  it. 

"Reason  I  ask,"— Mr.  Barlow  said,  "is  that  a 
friend  of  mine — one  of  the  bank's  best  customers 
— has  been  talking  to  me  about  it."  He  glanced 
at  the  door  and  studied  the  end  of  his  cigar;  also, 
he  gently  cleared  his  throat.  "I  wouldn't  won- 
der," he  continued  slowly,  avoiding  the  general 
agent's  eye — "I  wouldn't  wonder  if  he  might  buy 
a  little  of  it — provided  you  could  fix  it  for  him 
someway  so's  he  could  deal  direct  with  the  home 
office.  You  see,"  he  explained,  "he's  a  particular 
sort  of  man;  very  close-mouthed.  He  wouldn't 
care  to  have  George  Lewis  or  anybody  else  know 
what  he  was  doing.  Not  that  there's  anything 
wrong  about  it,  you  understand,"  said  the  banker, 
in  a  louder  and  firmer  tone;  "only  he  kind  of 
likes  to  keep  his  business  to  himself;  wouldn't 

140 


THE  'LOSING  GAME 


want  to  take  any  chances  of  anybody  gossiping 
around  town  what  he  was  doing." 

"Nothing  easier,"  Hamilton  replied  cheerfully, 
looking  Mr.  Barlow's  secretive  friend  genially  in 
the  eye.  "Here's  our  own  telegraph  operator — 
Mr.  Brewer.  He's  a  confidential  man.  You 
could  just  have  your  friend  tell  you  what  he 
wanted  to  buy,  you  see,  and  deposit  the  margin 
money  with  you,  and  then  Brewer  would  drop  in 
at  the  bank  and  you  could  give  him  the  order  arid 
he'd  wire  it  right  to  the  main  office." 

In  that  later  conversation  with  Brewer,  Hamil- 
ton explained  this  arrangement.  "Be  sure  you 
don't  give  it  away,  now,"  he  cautioned.  "We 
don't  land  a  bank  president  every  day." 

The  general  agent  was  in  an  exceedingly  pleas- 
ant frame  of  mind.  He  thought  Bremen  was 
going  to  pan  out  handsomely.  His  eyes  twinkled 
as  he  thoughtfully  worried  the  red  mustache, 
looking  across  the  street  at  the  neat  structure  of 
the  First  National.  "Fine  little  bank,  Billy,"  he 
commented  genially.  "You  want  to  keep  your  eye 

on  it.    Don't  let  anybody  scratch  up  the  bricks  or 

141 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


break  the  windows  or  bend  the  brass  wickets.  Be- 
cause it's  going  to  belong  to  us  by-and-by,  and  we 
want  it  handed  over  in  first-class  condition." 

Hamilton  spent  several  days  in  Bremen,  then 
proceeded  to  Cold  Springs,  Prairie  Center  and 
Luperville.  Into  each  of  these  thriving  country 
towns  he  carried  a  telegraph  operator  and  a  roll 
of  cloth  for  the  office  blackboard.  He  rented  an 
office,  picked  out  a  local  manager,  saw  the  private 
wire  installed,  made  acquaintances,  got  the  game 
fairly  started,  and  then  pushed  on  to  a  new 
station. 

Pound,  in  St.  Paul,  urged  him  along;  was 
actually  hungry,  it  seemed,  to  span  the  earth  with 
his  private  wire  and  dot  it  with  his  branch  offices. 

Now,  all  this  time — indeed,  all  that  winter  and 
far  into  ihe  spring — stocks  continued,  on  the 
whole,  to  rise.  More  than  nine-tenths  of  the 
country  speculators  who  were  drawn  in  by  the 
branch  offices  "went  long" — that  is,  bet  that  stocks 
would  rise.  So,  on  the  whole,  they  won  pretty 
steadily,  and  the  bucketshop  pretty  steadily  lost. 

And  to  begin  with,  it  had  only  eight  thousand  dol- 

142 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


lars  to  lose,  of  which  nearly  half  had  been  paid 
over  to  the  telegraph  company  for  the  private 
wire. 

"Let  'em  win  all  they  can,"  Pound  said.  "The 
more  they  win,  the  better — so  long  as  they  don't 
draw  out  their  winnings,  but  keep  on  putting  them 
back  into  the  game.  One  of  our  cornfed  bulls 
buys  twenty-five  shares  of  something.  It  goes  up 
a  couple  of  points,  so  he  wins  fifty  dollars.  But 
he  don't  draw  out  the  fifty.  On  the  contrary,  he 
leaves  it  with  us  and  digs  up  fifty  more  and  buys 
twice  as  many  shares.  Then  he  tells  half  a  dozen 
of  his  friends  what  luck  he's  having,  and  one  or 
two  of  them  digs  up  fifty  and  buys  something. 
We  keep  taking  in  more  money  than  we  pay  out, 
and  that's  the  only  thing  I  care  a  rap  about. 
There's  the  sporty  young  Jew  at  Bremen  that 
Hamilton  told  us  about.  He's  won  eight  hundred 
dollars;  but  instead  of  drawing  any  out,  he  keeps 
putting  in  fresh  money,  and  he  goes  around  brag- 
ging how  much  he's  won.  That's  the  best  sort  of 
an  advertisement  for  us.  That's  the  beauty  of 
this  country  trade.  One  of  these  days  the  market 

143 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


will  have  a  fine  smash  that  will  wipe  'em  all  out. 

Acting  on  this  theory,  Pound  began  sending 
out  glowing  market  letters  advising  everybody  to 
buy  stocks,  and  supplied  the  local  managers  with 
bullish  tips  to  distribute  among  their  customers. 

Emma  helped.  She  had  Hamilton  collect  for 
her  the  names  of  two  or  three  promising  persons 
in  each  town  where  they  had  a  branch  office. 
Presently,  each  of  these  persons  received  a  very 
confidential  letter  signed  by  Emma  Raymond, 
whose  address  was  a  certain  post-office  box.  The 
writer  explained  that  she  was  the  personal  stenog- 
rapher of  a  gentleman  of  great  wealth  and 
national  fame  who,  from  time  to  time,  carried  on 
large  stock-market  operations  in  association  with 
the  most  powerful  magnates  of  Wall  Street. 
Naturally,  she  often  came  into  possession  of  ex- 
ceedingly valuable  foreknowledge  of  market 
movements.  She  proposed  to  favor  the  addressee 
with  this  advance  information,  her  compensation 
to  consist  of  one-fifth  of  his  winnings,  as  to  the 
due  payment  of  which  she  would,  of  course,  have 
to  depend  solely  upon  his  honor. 

144 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Her  first  tip  to  Mr.  Barlow  brought  results  in 
the  form  of  an  order  from  his  mysterious  friend 
to  buy  another  hundred  shares  of  Copper.  When 
that  stock  had  advanced  two  points  Mr.  Barlow 
sent  Emma  a  five-dollar  bill.  Solly  Bloom,  how- 
ever, honorably  sent  her  a  check  for  forty  dollars. 
Indeed,  this  device  not  only  brought  additional 
business  to  the  bucketshop,  but  furnished  Emma 
with  quite  a  bit  of  pin  money,  for  she  always  ad- 
vised her  correspondents  to  buy. 

In  one  respect,  however,  Pound  became  dissat- 
isfied. His  country  offices  were  flourishing;  but 
he  was  getting  very  little  city  business  there  in 
St.  Paul.  He  set  about  to  remedy  that. 


145 


CHAPTER  VI 

AN  ENTERPRISE  WITH  MR.  LANSING 

LANSING  &  CO.  were  a  grain  commission 
house  of  long  standing  and  high  reputa- 
tion. Early  in  life  Mr.  Lansing  had  been 
a  school-teacher  in  Massachusetts,  and  he  had 
never,  so  to  speak,  been  able  to  get  over  it.  He 
retained  a  neat  Boston  accent  and  exact  manner 
of  speaking  which  contrasted  oddly  with  the 
broad,  slipshod  vernacular.  A  strange  tradition 
respecting  him  was  in  circulation — namely,  that  he 
put  on  evening  dress  at  dinner-time  even  when 
there  were  no  guests  in  the  house.  He  was  a  trim, 
smallish  man  of  fifty.  His  close-clipped  side- 
whiskers  and  mustache,  marking  a  clean-cut  area 
on  his  ruddy  face,  looked  as  precise  as  an  English 
hedge  on  a  smooth  lawn.  When  he  took  his 
eyeglasses  between  the  thumb  and  forefinger  of 
each  plump  hand,  adjusted  them  to  the  bridge 
of  his  nose  and  laid  the  tiny  black  silk  ribbon 

146 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


which  was  attached  to  them  over  his  right  ear, 
everybody  else's  manner  of  putting  on  eye-glasses 
seemed  vulgar.  "He  reminds  me,"  said  Pound 
to  his  wife,  "of  a  fresh-washed  pet  sheep,  with  a 
shaved  chin,  in  spectacles." 

Accident  threw  Mr.  Lansing  in  Pound's  way. 
Among  the  occasional  patrons  of  the  bucketshop's 
branch  office  at  Prairie  Center  was  a  grain  dealer 
who  did  business  at  St.  Paul  with  Lansing  &  Co. 
Once,  being  caught  short  of  ready  money  at  home, 
he  wired  Lansing  &  Co.  to  make  a  small  deposit 
for  his  account  with  the  Moxley  Stock  and  Grain 
Company.  Whereupon  Mr.  Lansing  wrote  him  a 
personal  letter,  paternally  remonstrating  with  him 
for  trading  with  a  bucketshop.  The  grain  dealer 
handed  this  letter  to  the  local  manager  at  Prairie 
Center,  who  forwarded  it  to  Pound. 

Pound  then  called  upon  Mr.  Lansing  with  the 
letter.  He  was  very  good-natured  about  it.  The 
Moxley  Stock  and  Grain  Company,  he  explained, 
already  had  some  four  thousand  customers  in  the 
Northwest— inadvertently  multiplying  the  actual 
number  by  about  fifteen— and  was  rapidly  getting 

147 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


more.  Of  course,  if  Mr.  Lansing  felt  obliged  to 
go  out  of  his  way  for  the  purpose  of  injuring 
them,  they  should  feel  compelled  to  retaliate ;  but 
he  hoped  no  such  disagreeable  necessity  would 
arise. 

The  fact  that  the  Prairie  Center  man  whom  he 
had  advised  in  such  a  fatherly  way  promptly 
turned  his  letter  over  to  the  condemned  bucket- 
shop  was  quite  humiliating  to  Mr.  Lansing.  He 
perceived  that  he  had  made  a  fool  of  himself,  and 
that  Pound  was  taking  the  least  possible  advan- 
tage of  the  fact.  The  two  parted  with  mutual 
politeness. 

During  this  call  Pound  noticed  that  the  office 
of  Lansing  &  Co.  was  provided  with  a  stock 
ticker,  but  had  no  blackboard  upon  which  to  post 
stock  quotations.  He  instantly  guessed  why,  and 
confirmed  the  guess,  upon  returning  to  his  own 
office,  by  ascertaining  that  Lansing  &  Co.  were 
not  members  of  the  New  York  Stock  Exchange. 
Not  being  members  of  the  Exchange,  they  were 
obliged  to  have  their  stock  orders  executed  by 
some  person  who  was  a  member,  and  to  pay  over 

148 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


to  that  person  the  whole  commission.  In  short, 
Lansing  &  Co.  got  not  a  penny  of  revenue  from 
stock  orders.  Naturally,  they  were  not  seeking 
such  orders.  Yet  the  presence  of  the  ticker 
showed  that  some  of  their  grain  clients  were 
interested  in  stocks,  and  that  Mr.  Lansing  felt 
under  obligations  to  execute  stock  orders  for 
them,  although  he  derived  no  profit  from  it.  This 
gave  Pound  an  idea. 

In  carrying  out  this  idea  he  moved  cautiously 
and  with  deliberation.  Three  or  four  times  he 
dropped  in  and  chatted  amiably  with  Mr.  Lan- 
sing, who  treated  him  with  condescending  good 
nature.  The  point  with  Pound,  however,  was  not 
how  Mr.  Lansing  treated  him  but  how  much  he 
swallowed  of  his  casual  remarks  concerning  the 
magnitude  of  the  bucketshop's  operations.  At 
length  he  proposed  to  open  a  personal  account 
with  Lansing  &  Co.  and  deal  in  grain  through 
them.  He  explained  that  he  was  obliged  to  do  a 
great  deal  of  business  on  the  Board  of  Trade  by 
way  of  hedging  against  the  grain  trades  of  the 

patrons  of  the  bucketshop. 

149 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Mr.  Lansing  listened  to  the  proposal  with  con- 
flicting emotions.  He  prided  himself  upon  his 
"regularity"  as  a  commission  merchant,  and  it 
was  not  strictly  ethical  for  a  "regular"  house  to 
have  any  dealings  with  a  bucketshop.  That  was 
a  good  deal  as  though  a  quack  proposed  to  hire 
a  regular  physician  to  write  prescriptions  for  him. 
But  if  the  quack  personally  were  ill,  the  regular 
physician  would  prescribe  for  him;  and  Pound 
proposed  to  deal  with  Lansing  &  Co.  merely  as 
an  individual.  He  spoke  offhand  of  large  orders. 
It  meant  a  very  snug  little  revenue,  in  commis- 
sions, for  Lansing  &  Co. 

In  truth,  Mr.  Lansing  was  dissatisfied.  His 
house  was  comparatively  old,  enjoyed  high  credit 
and  was  in  quite  easy  circumstances  financially; 
but  it  was  not  really  rich.  Mr.  Lansing's  per- 
sonal expenses  were  large  and  he  suffered  the 
humiliation  of  seeing  younger,  more  boisterous 
and  vulgar  concerns — which  certainly  deserved 
far  less  well  of  the  community  and  of  the  world  at 
large — outstrip  him  in  the  race  for  business  and 

profits.     This  was  especially  true  of  late,  since 

150 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


speculators  had  been  turning  so  much  to  stocks. 
Mr.  Lansing  had  often  anxiously  debated  whether 
he  should  not  buy  a  stock  exchange  membership 
and  go  in  for  that  trade.  But  a  membership  cost 
sixty  thousand  dollars,  and  he  didn't  quite  see 
his  way  to  tying  up  so  much  money.  It  was  par- 
ticularly hard,  under  these  circumstances,  to  turn 
away  the  profitable  business  which  Pound  offered 
him.  So  he  did  not  turn  it  away. 

Yet  he  was  scrupulous.  That  is,  he  thought  it 
would  be  well  for  Pound  to  open  the  account 
under  a  dummy  name  and  deal  with  himself  per- 
sonally. This  exactly  suited  Pound. 

For  some  time  Pound  did,  indeed,  deal  rather 
extensively  in  grain,  buying  and  selling  so  as  to 
avoid  much  risk  of  loss,  yet  paying  a  good  many 
hundred  dollars  in  commissions  to  Lansing  &  Co. 
Then  he  proposed  to  put  in  a  private  telephone 
wire  between  his  desk  and  Mr.  Lansing's  desk— 
because  it  was  so  inconvenient  to  go  two  blocks, 
personally,  or  send  a  messenger,  with  every  order. 
Mr.  Lansing  could  see  the  inconvenience — also 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


that,  with  a  private  telephone,  Pound  would  prob- 
ably trade  more  extensively. 

The  next  step  was  somewhat  more  difficult ;  but 
by  this  time  Pound  was  on  very  good  terms  with 
the  grain  merchant — considering  how  much  superi- 
or to  him,  by  nature  and  education,  the  latter  was. 

In  good  time  he  pointed  out  that  Lansing  & 
Co.  had  a  fine  clientele  in  the  grain  business. 
Many  of  these  grain  clients  also  dealt  in  stocks. 
Why  shouldn't  Mr.  Lansing  do  their  stock  busi- 
ness as  well  as  their  grain  business,  thereby,  out 
of  hand,  greatly  increasing  his  income?  True, 
Mr.  Lansing  might  take  their  stock  orders  now, 
and  turn  them  over  to  an  exchange  member  who 
would  hog  all  the  commissions,  leaving  not  a  sou 
for  Lansing  &  Co.  Why  shouldn't  Mr.  Lansing 
just  send  the  stock  orders  over  to  Pound,  who 
would  not  only  divide  the  commissions  with  him, 
but  would  let  him  keep  all  the  interest  which  he 
charged  the  customers  for  carrying  their  stocks? 
In  short,  why  shouldn't  Mr.  Lansing  take  the  ten 
or  fifteen  thousand  dollars  a  year  which  was  all 
ready  to  drop  into  his  hand? 

152 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


This,  of  course,  was  not  merely  writing  pre- 
scriptions for  the  quack.  It  was  going  into  full 
partnership  with  him — with  the  important  excep- 
tion that  the  partnership  would  be  secret. 

According  to  his  nature,  Mr.  Lansing  fell  only 
by  degrees.  That  is,  he  began  by  sending  only 
a  few  stock  orders  over  to  the  bucketshop.  Be- 
fore long,  however,  he  was  sending  all  his  stock 
orders  that  way.  The  business  between  the  regu- 
lar house  and  the  bucketshop,  being  of  a  peculiar 
nature,  was  carried  on  in  a  peculiar  way. 

Naturally,  Mr.  Lansing  took  every  precaution 
he  could  think  of  to  keep  it  secret.  The  private 
telephone  line  ran  direct  from  his  desk  to  Pound's 
desk,  without  any  other  connection.  All  the 
orders  were  sent  by  himself  personally  over  this 
line,  and  received  by  Pound  personally.  To  con- 
firm the  orders,  Pound  merely  wrote  on  a  blank 
card  the  name  of  the  stock,  the  number  of  shares 
bought  or  sold,  and  the  price ;  then  signed  it  with 
his  initials  and  mailed  the  card  to  Mr.  Lansing 
personally  in  a  plain  envelope.  The  trades  were 
not  entered  at  all  on  the  regular  books  of  the 

153 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


bucketshop,  but  were  kept  by  Pound  in  a  little  red 
memorandum  book,  securely  locked  in  his  desk. 
Mr.  Lansing  was  even  fearful  lest  the  money 
that  passed  between  them  for  margins  and  on 
settlement  of  trades  might  be  traced  through  the 
banks.  At  Pound's  suggestion  the  checks  were 
made  out  to  his  wife,  under  her  former  name  of 
Emma  Raymond. 

Now,  Lansing  &  Co.'s  customers  were  mostly 
of  the  experienced,  more  or  less  "professional" 
sort.  As  stocks  had  been  going  up  for  a  good 
while  they  were  inclined  to  take  the  bear  side — 
that  is,  to  play  for  a  fall.  Consequently,  they 
sold  much  more  than  they  bought.  And,  as  stocks 
continued  to  rise  pretty  steadily,  they  lost  pretty 
steadily.  Thus  the  number  of  checks  that  trav- 
eled from  Lansing  &  Co.  to  Emma  decidedly  ex- 
ceeded the  number  that  traveled  back  from  Emma 
to  Lansing  &  Co. 

This  was  a  welcome  relief  to  Pound.  He  had 
pushed  on  with  the  wire.  The  company  now  had 
ten  country  offices — the  farthest  one  in  Montana. 
The  wire  account  ate  up  its  meagre  capital. 

154 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Moreover,  nearly  all  of  the  country  speculators, 
when  they  dealt  in  stocks,  played  for  a  rise,  and 
as  stocks  rose  their  winnings  accumulated.  No 
such  luck  attended  them  when  they  dealt  in  grain. 
Indeed,  the  bucketshop's  grain  account  showed  a 
very  fair  profit.  Its  gains  from  Lansing's  profes- 
sional bears  helped.  Yet  there  was  no  denying 
that  it  was  skating  over  exceedingly  thin  ice. 
For  days  together  it  was,  in  fact,  hopelessly  in- 
solvent. It  could  not  have  come  near  paying  its 
customers  what  it  owed  them  if  they  had  de- 
manded payment.  Pound  fortified  himself  with 
the  conviction  that  they  would  not  demand  pay- 
ment, but  would  continue  putting  back  into  the 
game  all  they  won  and  more,  too.  More  money 
did,  indeed,  come  in  than  went  out;  but  knowledge 
that  one  cannot  pay  if  required  to  do  so  is  trying 
to  one's  nerves. 

Without  a  suspicion  that  their  winnings  con- 
sisted of  nothing  more  tangible  than  some  figures 
on  the  bucketshop's  books,  the  country  bulls  were 
in  high  feather.  Solly  Bloom,  at  Bremen,  bought 
himself  another  diamond  ring.  But  he  wore  it  in 

155 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


his  pocket — for  S.  Bloom,  Sr.,  was  one  of  the  few 
persons  in  town  who  did  not  know  that  Solly  was 
playing  the  market.  The  habitues  of  Joe  Hart- 
wick's  Sample  Room  discussed  his  trades  with  in- 
terest and  with  intimate  knowledge.  Even  Zeke, 
the  colored  porter  of  the  Bremen  House,  knew 
that  Solly  was  fourteen  hundred  dollars  ahead  of 
the  game — and  told  traveling  men  about  it  in  the 
same  spirit  of  local  pride  with  which  he  boasted 
of  the  gristmill  and  the  big  wheat  crop. 

It  was  noticed  that  Mr.  Barlow  now  carried 
prime  five-cent  cigars  right  around  in  his  vest 
pocket,  and  every  now  and  then  gave  one  away. 
From  which  the  inference  that  Mr.  Barlow  was 
somehow  making  a  great  deal  of  money  was  irre- 
sistible. It  began  to  be  rumored  that  he  was  plan- 
ning to  build  a  residence  which  would  outshine 
anything  in  the  county.  When  questioned  about 
it  Mr.  Barlow  only  smiled  mysteriously,  then  went 
to  his  room  and  figured  up  again  how  much  his 
Copper  stock  had  made  for  him. 

Wyandotte  and  Prairie  Center,  Luperville  and 

Roscoe,  Loam  City,  Hillsdale  and  Heinemann 

156 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


each  had  its  group  of  happy  little  bulls.  And 
stocks  still  rose. 

At  length  Pound  grew  nervous — understanding 
the  psychology  of  the  little  bull.  That  mysterious 
animal  would  let  his  winnings  accumulate  until 
they  reached  such  proportions  that  they  presented 
themselves  to  his  mind  in  the  (Tangible  form  of  a 
new  barn,  or  an  L  on  the  house,  or  a  driving 
horse,  or  a  trip  to  the  Coast.  Then  he  would 
want  to  draw  them  out  and  convert  them  into  that 
tangible  form.  Or  else,  some  subtle  wave  of  cau- 
tion would  infect  a  whole  drove  of  him  at  once. 

Wyandotte,  the  oldest  office,  was  the  first  one 
to  turn  bad.  One  customer  after  another  drew 
out  considerable  sums.  Then  the  newest  office, 
in  Montana,  began  pulling  unpleasantly  at  the 
bank  account.  Next  Brewer  wrote  that  he  guessed 
Mr.  Barlow  was  going  to  pull  out.  Mr.  Barlow 
was  "long"  six  hundred  shares  of  Copper,  on 
which  his  gains  amounted  to  nearly  nine  thousand 
dollars. 

At  this  inopportune  moment  the  refreshing 
stream  of  cash  from  Lansing  &  Co.  was  partly 

157 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


cut  off.  Mr.  Lansing — Pound  could  hardly  for- 
give him  for  it — discovered  a  trader  who  was  a 
bull  and  had  the  courage  of  his  convictions.  This 
man  had  bought  Northern  Pacific  until  he  was 
"long"  eight  hundred  shares.  Lansing's  bear 
traders  were  still  "short"  some  three  thousand 
shares  of  various  stocks ;  but  as  the  bears  lost,  the 
bull  won;  so,  on  a  net  balance,  less  margin  money 
than  formerly  passed  from  Lansing  to  Pound. 

The  bucketshop  had  a  fine  balance  to  its  credit 
at  the  bank,  but  it  really  owed  its  customers  twice 
the  amount  of  the  balance.  Pound  was  troubled 
by  a  feeling  that  the  concern  had  become  a  house 
of  cards  which  any  breeze  that  started  a  selling 
movement  among  the  customers  would  lay  low. 

The  breeze  sprang  up  early  in  May.  Pound 
received  a  letter  from  the  manager  at  Wyandotte 
— which  some  more  skillful  hand  had  evidently 
prepared.  It  said  that  the  local  customers  had 
been  conferring  and  had  reached  the  conclusion 
that  the  Moxley  Stock  and  Grain  Company  should 
at  once  deposit  in  the  Wyandotte  Bank  at  least 
enough  money  to  settle  all  local  trades,  and  there- 

158 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


after  local  margin  money  should  be  kept  at  home 
instead  of  being  forwarded  daily  to  St.  Paul.  In 
compliance  with  this  opinion,  the  manager  wrote, 
he  had  given  the  Wyandotte  Bank  a  draft  on  the 
company  for  five  thousand  dollars. 

Now,  under  Pound's  system,  all  the  margin 
money  that  was  paid  in  at  the  local  offices  was  at 
once  transferred  by  wire  to  St.  Paul.  Naturally, 
the  local  banks  would  have  preferred  to  keep  this 
money  at  home.  Pound  guessed  that  the  Wyan- 
dotte Bank  people  had  been  egging  on  the  man- 
ager to  make  this  move. 

It  presented  a  dangerous  dilemma.  On  the  one 
hand,  if  he  honored  the  manager's  draft,  thereby 
transferring  five  thousand  dollars  to  the  Wyan- 
dotte Bank,  it  would  break  up  his  system  of  keep- 
ing the  money  and  the  game  entirely  in  his  own 
hands.  ,Very  likely  the  Wyandotte  Bank  would 
pass  on  the  word  to  the  banks  in  other  towns, 
which  would  follow  its  lead.  As  the  company 
didn't  have  half  enough  money  to  go  around,  the 
result  would  be  ruin.  On  the  other  hand,  if  he 
refused  to  pay  the  draft  the  Wyandotte  Bank 

159 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


might  proclaim  that  he  was  out  of  money  and 
start  a  panic  among  his  customers  which  would 
spread  to  other  towns  with  equal  ruin. 

He  left  the  office  early  and  walked  out  to  the 
modest  flat  which  he  and  Emma  had  taken.  It 
was  a  beautiful  May  afternoon.  Even  in  that 
comparatively  high  latitude  spring  was  well  ad- 
vanced. But  Pound  was  scarcely  aware  of  it. 
His  mood  was  not  vernal.  He  gave  Emma  the 
letter  without  comment. 

She  considered  it  carefully.  "I  remember  this 
man,"  she  observed,  glancing  again  at  the  letter. 
"He  used  to  hang  around  the  office  when  I  was 
out  there.  I  don't  believe  he's  got  any  sand.  Re- 
fuse to  pay  the  draft  and  send  Ham  down  there 
to  threaten  to  fire  him  on  the  spot.  I  bet,  if  you 
jump  on  him  quick  with  both  feet  he'll  cave  and 
be  down  on  his  knees  begging  Ham  to  let  him 
keep  the  office  on  any  terms.  If  the  bluff  don't 
work" — she  smiled  a  little  thoughtfully— "well, 
there's  no  use  hunting  for  the  last  ditch  until  you 
come  to  it." 

Both  of  them,  in  fact,  had  courage,  but  it  was 
1 60 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


not  of  the  blind,  feather-headed  kind.  They  real- 
ized the  gravity  of  the  situation,  and  faced  it 
soberly.  Indeed,  that  evening  Emma  examined 
the  three  diamonds  in  which  she  had  thriftily  in- 
vested her  pin  money.  If  it  came  to  that  the 
jewels  would  pay  their  boardbills  for  some  time. 
Pound  got  out  an  old  get-rich-quick  circular  and 
glanced  it  over.  That  was  a  line  in  which  a  man 
with  practically  no  capital  could  always  try  for  a 
fresh  start — although,  if  the  postoffice  authorities 
happened  to  find  it  out  it  might  land  him  in  the 
penitentiary. 

He  went  downtown  rather  early  next  morning 
— the  eighth  of  May.  Entering  the  office,  his  eye 
took  in  its  familiar  face,  and  his  heart  grew  quite 
heavy.  This  place  was,  after  all,  peculiarly  his 
own;  the  vantage  ground  to  which  he  had  pulled 
himself  up  out  of  the  ruck  of  things.  Possibly 
this  was  the  last  day  he  would  enter  it  as  master. 
The  thought  was  painful.  Nevertheless,  he  pre- 
pared coolly  for  the  day's  business.  Hamilton 
was  already  in  Wyandotte — where  his  bluff  would 
either  disconcert  the  enemy  or  blow  up  the  fort, 

161 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


it  was  hard  to  tell  which.  And  that  long-awaited 
turn  in  the  market  might  come  this  very  day. 

The  first  bit  of  business  was  unpromising.  Mr. 
Lansing  telephoned  over  an  order  to  buy  two  hun- 
dred shares  more  of  Northern  Pacific  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  market.  Making  a  memorandum  of 
the  trade,  Pound  swore  under  his  breath  at  the 
formal  little  man. 

But  more  cheering  developments  awaited  him. 
The  market,  indeed,  soon  turned  decidedly  weak. 
One  stock  after  another  declined,  and  as  the  quo- 
tations sank  a  good  many  of  the  country  bulls 
were  wiped  out,  or  else  had  to  rush  in  fresh  money 
by  wire  to  keep  their  margins  good.  And  this 
sudden  weakness  of  the  market  helped  on  Ham- 
ilton's bluff,  which  was,  indeed,  completely  suc- 
cessful. 

So  Pound  went  home  in  very  good  spirits.  "If 
we  can  just  get  a  few  more  days  like  today  we'll 
be  on  Easy  Street,"  he  told  Emma  cheerfully. 
"Only,"  he  added  with  a  frown,  "those  blasted 
Lansing  trades  bleed  us." 

In  respect  to.  Lansing  &  Co.  luck  had  signally 
162 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


flouted  him.  For,  while  almost  every  other  stock 
on  the  list  had  declined,  Northern  Pacific  had  ad- 
vanced. Thus,  while  Lansing's  bears  won  on  the 
fall  of  the  general  list,  his  bull  won  on  the  advance 
of  Northern  Pacific.  "We  ought  to  get  that 
Northern  Pacific  fellow  tomorrow,"  Pound  com- 
mented. 

But  the  morrow  brought  such  a  stock  market  as 
no  man  had  ever  seen.  While  the  price  of  all 
other  stocks  melted  like  butter,  Northern  Pacific 
rose  in  great  leaps.  Every  one  soon  knew  the 
explanation.  Northern  Pacific  was  cornered. 
Two  factions,  backed  by  hundreds  of  millions  of 
dollars,  were  fighting  tooth  and  nail  for  it.  And 
this  untoward  battle  of  the  giants  plunged  the 
market  into  chaos. 

Watching  the  panic  sweep  through  the  list  like 
fire  in  stubble,  Pound  raged  helplessly.  True, 
this  tremendous  smash  was  wiping  out  all  his  tall- 
grass  bulls  by  wholesale.  All  their  stakes  and 
winnings  were  tumbling  into  the  profit  account  of 
the  bucketshop  in  a  lump.  But  this  furious  panic, 
Pound  thought,  would  kill  the  game,  frightening 

163 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


everybody  so  there  would  be  no  getting  them 
back  into  the  market.  He  was  in  the  position  of 
a  man  who  wanted  a  breeze  and  got  a  hurricane. 

But  this  was  by  no  means  the  worst.  Lansing's 
bear  traders  were  "short"  with  him  some  three 
thousand  shares  of  various  stocks.  Every  instant 
piled  up  their  gains  and  his  losses  on  those  short 
trades.  All  that  he  was  winning  from  his  country 
bulls  was  flowing  automatically  to  the  pockets  of 
Lansing's  bears.  And  Lansing's  one  bull  was 
long  a  thousand  shares  of  Northern  Pacific — 
which  had  just  sold  at  the  ridiculous  price  of  two 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars  a  share !  Pound's  losses 
on  that  Northern  Pacific  alone  would  ruin  him. 

To  be  ruined  twice  over  by,  or  through,  a  min- 
cing little  snob,  a  pet  sheep  with  a  shaved  chin ! 

In  helpless  rage,  half  fascinated,  he  watched 
the  blackboard.  Stocks  fell  and  fell,  as  though 
there  were  no  bottom  to  the  market ;  but  Northern 
Pacific  climbed.  Quotations  came  so  fast  that  the 
blackboard  man,  holding  a  telegraph  instrument 
with  a  pliable  wire  in  his  left  hand,  even  with  his 

shoulder,  trotted  up  and  down  like  an  uneasy 

164 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


dog,  and  still  could  not  ply  his  chalk  rapidly 
enough.  Under  the  column  headed  NP  he 
chalked  "500." 

"What's  that?  What's  that?"  Pound  called. 

The  man  threw  a  half-frightened  glance  over 
his  shoulder,  as  though  the  panic  of  the  market 
infected  him,  and  called  back:  "Yes,  sir;  that's 
right;  five  hundred  for  Northern  Pacific!" 

Pound  almost  laughed.  It  was  simply  ridicu- 
lous! A  roaring  farce!  And,  some  way,  this 
gleam  of  humor  brought  an  amusing  idea  with  it. 
An  instant  afterward  it  struck  him  as  strange  that 
he  had  not  heard  from  Mr.  Lansing  that  morn- 
ing. At  nearly  the  same  time  an  office-boy  slipped 
up  to  tell  him  that  the  private  'phone  in  his  room 
was  ringing.  Striding  to  his  desk,  Pound  reflected 
sardonically  that  it  would  be  exactly  like  Mr.  Lan- 
sing to  get  downtown  late  on  this  day  of  all  days. 
Composing  the  muscles  of  his  face  he  took  up  the 
receiver.  Except  for  the  Boston  accent  he  would 
hardly  have  recognized  the  agitated  voice  that 
came  over  the  wire.  Evidently,  Mr.  Lansing's 
nerves  were  in  a  sad  state  of  excitement. 

165 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


"Pound I  Pound!  Say,  I  want  Mr.  Pound! 
Can't  you  understand  anything?  Oh,  say,  Pound? 
Is  that  you,  Pound?  I've  been  trying  to  get  you." 
So  the  voice  continued  to  clamor. 

"This  is  Pound,  Mr.  Lansing ;  I'm  listening ;  go 
ahead,"  said  the  bucketshop  man  coolly. 

"Say,  Pound.  See  here.  Now,  listen.  Our 
account,  you  know;  our  account.  Pound,  I  want 
every  trade  in  that  account  closed  out  immediately 
— at  the  market.  Do  you  understand?" 

"I  understand,  Mr.  Lansing,"  Pound  replied. 
"Close  every  trade  in  the  account  immediately." 

"At  the  market.  You  understand?  And,  say, 
Pound,  we  must  get  together  immediately.  We 
must  have  a  settlement,  you  and  I.  Do  you 
understand?" 

"I'll  have  a  statement  of  the  account  made  up 
as  soon  as  possible,  Mr.  Lansing,"  said  Pound, 
"and  send  it  right  over  to  you." 

"Very  well,  Pound.  At  once.  You  under- 
stand? We  must  have  a  settlement." 

Going  to  the  blackboard,  Pound  took  down  the 
latest  quotations  on  the  various  stocks  in  Mr. 

166 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Lansing's  account.  Then  he  got  out  the  little  red 
memorandum  book  and  figured  up  the  gains — 
that  is,  the  difference  between  the  last  quotations 
and  the  prices  at  which  Mr.  Lansing  had  bought 
or  sold.  He  handed  his  figures  to  a  bookkeeper, 
who,  from  them,  would  draw  up  a  statement  of 
the  account  in  due  form.  Next,  he  sent  a  mes- 
senger with  a  note  to  Emma. 

Twice  before  noon  Mr.  Lansing  called  him  up, 
clamoring  for  the  statement.  Pound  apologized; 
it  was  an  exceedingly  busy  day;  his  clerks  were 
overwhelmed;  the  bookkeeper  would  make  up 
the  statement  very  soon ;  he  would  send  it  over  the 
moment  it  was  ready. 

But  when  the  statement  was  prepared  he  put 
it  in  his  desk  and  instructed  the  office-boy  that  if 
Mr.  Lansing  called  up  he  was  to  be  told  Mr. 
Pound  had  stepped  out. 

There  were  plenty  of  other  things  to  occupy  his 
attention.  Before  noon  Northern  Pacific  had  sold 
at  the  monstrous  price  of  one  thousand  dollars 
a  share,  while  other  big  stocks  had  fallen  ten, 
twenty,  thirty,  even  forty  dollars  a  share.  That 

167 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


day  Mr.  Barlow — far  from  drawing  out  the  nine 
thousand  dollars  of  accumulated  profits  which  had 
been  his  two  days  before — wired  in  six  thousand 
dollars  fresh  money  to  keep  good  his  margins. 
Early  in  the  day  margin  money  poured  in  from 
the  other  offices.  Very  often  the  new  margin  was 
exhausted  and  the  money  lost  before  it  could  be 
transferred  by  wire  to  headquarters.  As  the 
panic  developed  its  full  intensity  nearly  every  one 
of  the  country  bulls  succumbed.  Only  a  very  few 
— who,  like  Mr.  Barlow,  could  instantly  command 
a  considerable  sum  in  ready  cash — kept  good  their 
margins.  By  one  o'clock  the  country  sheets  of 
the  bucketshop  were  practically  clean  of  stocks; 
all  the  money  that  had  been  paid  in  for  margins 
and  all  the  accumulated  winnings  belonged  to  the 
company. 

At  that  hour  Pound  put  on  his  hat  and  stepped 
briskly  to  the  street.  He  had  waited  barely  a 
minute  on  the  flagging  when  a  carriage  drew  up 
to  the  curb.  Pound  gave  a  direction  to  the  driver 
and  entered  the  vehicle.  Within  sat  Emma,  and 
at  her  feet  stood  a  stout  leather  bag.  Agreeably 

168 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


to  Pound's  direction  the  carriage  drew  up  before 
a  department  store,  which  he  entered,  carrying 
the  stout  bag.  But  he  walked  directly  through  the 
establishment  and  down  to  the  Norse  National 
Bank.  There  he  conferred  with  the  cashier  a 
few  moments.  That  official  conducted  him  to  the 
empty  directors'-room.  About  five  minutes  later 
he  emerged,  retraced  his  course  to  the  department 
store,  came  out  on  the  other  side  and  reentered 
the  carriage.  He  had  first  picked  up  the  black 
bag  with  an  easy  motion,  as  one  lifts  a  light  object. 
But  when  he  set  it  down  again  at  Emma's  feet  it 
seemed  heavy. 

"Don't  lose  it,"  he  said  jocularly.  "It's  the 
best  baggage  we've  ever  had." 

He  left  the  carriage  a  block  from  the  office 
and  walked  back.  When  he  entered  the  office-boy 
told  him  that  Mr.  Lansing  had  been  hanging  to 
the  private  telephone  for  the  last  ten  minutes  and 
ringing  the  bell  every  other  minute.  Pound  went 
in  and  took  up  the  receiver. 

"This  is  Mr.  Pound,"  he  said  sharply.  "Now, 
see  here,  Lansing,  I'm  not  going  to  be  bothered 

169 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


this  way.  I've  told  you  I'm  busy.  When  I  have 
that  statement  ready  I'll  send  it  over  to  you.  I 
don't  want  to  hear  from  you  again  until  I  do  send 
it.  I've  got  something  else  to  do.  In  fact,  I'm 
going  to  disconnect  the  telephone,"  with  which 
grossly-discourteous  speech  he  put  the  receiver 
on  the  desk  and  walked  out. 

The  stock  market  closed  in  New  York  at  two 
o'clock,  St.  Paul  time,  but  for  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  quotations  continued  to  come  in.  The  trade 
had  been  so  enormous  that  the  wires  could  not 
keep  up  with  it.  The  quotation  man,  ready  to 
drop  from  weariness,  was  just  thankfully  writing 
"Closed"  on  the  blackboard,  when  Mr.  Lansing 
entered  very  briskly,  dabbing  the  perspiration 
from  his  brow  with  a  fine  cambric  handkerchief. 
He  came  with  such  haste,  in  fact,  that  a  crossings 
policeman  was  minded  to  arrest  the  chauffeur 
until  he  saw  the  occupants  of  the  car.  For  Mr. 
Lansing  was  not  alone.  Benjamin  F.  Totherow, 
a  leader  of  the  bar,  accompanied  him.  The  buck- 
etshop  man  silently  led  them  to  his  room. 

Pound  was  quite  cool.     He  noticed  that  the 
170 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


commission  merchant's  eyes  glistened  excitedly, 
and  even  as  he  sat  down  he  began  fiddling  ner- 
vously with  his  eyeglasses.  But  the  lawyer  turned 
a  lean,  bold  face  upon  the  bucketshop  man  much 
like  a  hawk  hovering  over  a  plump  little  chick. 
Obviously  the  callers  were  in  haste. 

"I  came  to  settle  up  our  account,  Pound,"  said 
Mr.  Lansing  with  a  nervous  briskness,  yet  quite 
cheerfully  swinging  his  glasses  by  their  tiny  black 
ribbon. 

"Well,  now,  Mr.  Lansing,"  Pound  began  in  a 
mild  and  propitiating  way,  "this  runs  into  a  pretty 
big  sum.  I  suppose  it  isn't  unusual — isn't  really 
anything  out  of  the  way,  as  you  might  say — when 
the  amount  is  so  large,  to  grant  some  accommoda- 
tion." 

"Oh,  no!  Not  unusual  at  all,  Pound!  Not  un- 
usual at  all!"  Mr.  Lansing  replied,  very  cheer- 
fully indeed.  He  settled  to  a  more  comfortable 
posture  in  his  chair,  contentedly  swinging  his  eye- 
glasses a  little  faster,  and  even  turned  to  beam 
upon  Mr.  Totherow  triumphantly.  "That  is,  you 

understand,  Pound— as  a  matter  of  course — a  rea- 

171 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


sonable  accommodation.  Part  cash;  part  time — 
with  reasonable  security."  He  nodded  his  head 
at  the  bucketshop  man  with  good-natured  conde- 
scension. "What  would  be  your  idea  now,  Pound, 
of  a  reasonable  accommodation?"  he  asked  en- 
couragingly. 

"Why,  I  hardly  know,"  Pound  replied  thought- 
fully. "I  hardly  know  what  to  say.  If  it  would 
be  satisfactory  to  you,  Mr.  Lansing — quite  satis- 
factory to  you,"  he  repeated  apologetically,  "I 
would  be  willing  to  take  twenty-five  per  cent,  in 
cash  and  your  notes  for  the  remainder  at  six 
months — with  fair  security,  as  you  said." 

Mr.  Lansing  seemed  stricken  with  paralysis. 
His  jaw  dropped.  The  hand  that  was  swinging 
the  eyeglasses  froze  stiff  in  the  middle  of  a  beat. 
"You'd  take — my  notes?"  he  gasped  incredu- 
lously. 

"If  that  suits  you,  Mr.  Lansing,"  Pound  replied 
mildly.  As  mildly  he  added:  "Here's  my  state- 
ment of  the  account.  See  if  it  agrees  with  yours." 

He  took  the  statement  from  his  drawer  and 

handed  it  over.    Mr.  Lansing  stared  down  at  it 

172 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


in  a  dazed  sort  of  way  for  a  moment,  and  then 
murmured  with  a  kind  of  awe,  "Gracious 
Heavens  I" 

For  on  this  statement  all  of  Mr.  Lansing's  pur- 
chases of  Northern  Pacific  stock  appeared  as 
sales.  It  showed  that  the  commission  merchant 
had  been  "short"  with  the  bucketshop  one  thou- 
sand shares  of  that  stock,  and  as  the  trades  had 
been  closed  at  five  hundred  dollars  a  share,  his 
loss  on  Northern  Pacific  amounted  to  four  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars.  Mr.  Lansing  had— ac- 
cording to  the  statement  and  in  fact — been  "short" 
some  three  thousand  shares  of  other  stocks,  and 
those  trades,  having  been  closed  at  the  panic 
prices,  showed  a  profit  of  eighty  thousand  dollars. 
Thus,  on  the  net  balance,  according  to  Pound's 
statement,  Mr.  Lansing  owed  the  bucketshop 
three  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  dollars. 

The  commission  merchant  seemed  bereft  of 
sense.  He  turned  stupidly  to  his  lawyer  and  tried 
to  explain  it.  "You  see,  Totherow?  You  see 
what  he's  done?"  he  stammered  weakly.  "My 
purchases  of  Northern  Pacific— you  see— he's  put 

173 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


them  down  as  sales.  He  says  I  was  short  a  thou- 
sand shares  of  Northern  Pacific."  He  shook  his 
head  as  though  dumfounded,  and  murmured 
again,  "Gracious  Heavens  1" 

The  lawyer  turned  to  Pound  with  an  angry, 
menacing  look  which  the  latter  met  with  an  ex- 
pression of  innocent  surprise.  "Why,  Mr.  Lan- 
sing," he  expostulated,  "of  course  you  were  short. 
You  know  you  never  bought  anything.  You  were 
always  short." 

Pound's  virtuous  indignation  rose.  He  rum- 
pled his  hair,  blustered,  thumped  the  table.  In  a 
moment  all  three  were  shouting  at  once.  But 
Pound's  lungs  were  strongest.  He  outshouted 
them.  Of  course  Lansing  was  "short"  of  North- 
ern Pacific;  Lansing  was  always  "short"  of  every- 
thing; they  couldn't  bluff  him;  he  wanted  his 
money — three  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  dol- 
lars !  He  banged  away  at  the  table,  bawled,  ges- 
ticulated. Why,  he  could  prove  it  right  from  the 
original  entries  of  the  trades !  Here  they  were ! 
They  could  see  for  themselves!  Whereupon  he 
flung  down  the  little  red  memorandum  book. 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


This  book  contained  the  only  record  in  Pound's 
office  of  the  transactions  between  Lansing  and 
himself,  and  this  record  consisted  simply  of  a 
series  of  entries  made  in  pencil.  Sure  enough,  it 
showed  that  all  the  trades  in  Northern  Pacific 
were  sales,  not  purchases.  Of  course,  there  was  a 
rubber  on  the  other  end  of  Pound's  pencil. 

To  be  sure,  Mr.  Lansing  had  his  own  record, 
and  various  memoranda  bearing  Pound's  initials. 
Yet  Pound  insisted  that  the  little  red  book  was  the 
true  record;  defied  them  to  prove  otherwise.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  the  whole  business  was  illicit, 
the  transactions  were  gambling  agreements,  and  it 
was  exceedingly  doubtful  if  a  court  would  en- 
force them.  But  Benjamin  F.  Totherow  was  not 
out  of  trumps.  Amid  the  senseless  clamor  he 
suddenly  collected  himself  and  sprang  up. 

"Very  well!  Very  well!  We'll  come  to  the 
showdown!"  he  cried  menacingly.  "Mr.  Pound, 
with  your  kind  permission,  I'll  use  your  tele- 
phone." 

Pound  himself  took  the  instrument  from  the 
desk  and  handed  it  over  to  the  lawyer  with  a 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


politeness  as  mocking  as  his  own.  It  took  Mr. 
Totherow  a  minute  to  get  the  connection.  Then, 
to  the  person  at  the  other  end  of  the  wire  he  said 
loudly:  "This  is  Totherow.  Go  ahead  instantly'.1" 

For  a  minute  or  two  the  little  room  was  still. 
The  only  sounds  were  those  made  by  the  lawyer 
in  stepping  across  to  the  table  and  reseating  him- 
self. Very  deliberately,  in  low  but  full  and  scorn- 
ful tones,  he  addressed  the  bucketshop  man. 

"We  came  here,  sir,  to  settle  this  account,"  he 
said.  "Mr.  Lansing  was  aware  that  he  had  a 
slippery  fish  to  deal  with,  so  he  called  me  in.  We 
came  prepared.  We  were  really  to  settle  with 
you  reasonably.  We  would  have  accepted  fifty 
thousand  dollars  in  cash,  and  your  note,  fairly  se- 
cured, for  another  fifty  thousand.  With  that  we 
would  have  wiped  the  slate.  We  will  still  settle 
on  those  terms  if  you  accept  them  immediately." 
He  paused ;  but  Pound  did  not  deign  to  reply. 

"I  am  not  in  the  habit,"  Mr.  Totherow  con- 
tinued with  justifiable  pride,  "of  having  clients 
of  mine  sent  away  empty-handed.  So,  while  I  was 
prepared  to  settle  amiably,  I  was  also  prepared 

176 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


to  force  a  settlement.  Probably  you  banked  on 
Mr.  Lansing's  unwillingness  to  appear  publicly  as 
a  patron  of  a  bucketshop.  It  is  not  necessary  for 
him  so  to  appear.  He  has  already  assigned  his 
claim  against  you  to  a  third  person."  The  law- 
yer again  paused  an  instant  and  leveled  a  long 
forefinger  at  Pound.  "On  behalf  of  that  third 
person,"  he  added  very  deliberately,  "I  have  at- 
tached your  bank  account.  The  papers  will  be 
served  immediately.  You  can't  move  a  dollar 
until  you  settle  with  us ;  not  a  dollar !"  He  leaned 
back  and  smiled. 

Pound  simply  reached  over  and  touched  the 
button  on  his  desk.  When  the  office-boy  appeared 
he  said:  "Jimmy,  just  call  up  the  Norse  Na- 
tional Bank  and  ask  them  to  tell  you  the  amount 
of  our  balance ;  say  I  want  to  know." 

In  silence  they  heard  the  boy  telephone,  and  as 
he  waited  for  a  reply  Pound  turned  to  Mr.  Lan- 
sing. "Would  you  like  to  hear  the  answer?"  he 
asked  coolly.  "Jimmy,  hand  the  telephone  to  Mr. 
Lansing  here." 

Doubtfully  and  half  mechanically  Mr.  Lansing 
177 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


took  the  instrument  from  the  boy.  In  a  moment 
he  exclaimed  excitedly:  "What's  that?  What's 
that?  Two  thousand?"  He  listened  again;  then 
put  down  the  instrument  and  turned  mournfully 
to  his  lawyer.  "They've  got  only  two  thousand 
three  hundred  and  sixteen  dollars  in  the  bank," 
he  said. 

Pound  laughed  gently,  but  Mr.  Totherow 
blushed.  The  lawyer  had  calculated  that,  at  the 
close  of  such  a  day  as  this,  the  bucketshop  would 
have  a  great  deal  of  money  in  the  bank.  He  now 
perceived  that  Pound  had  anticipated  exactly  that 
calculation.  "You've  drawn  the  money  out  of 
the  bank,"  he  said  sternly;  "but  it  will  do  you  no 
good.  I'll  find  it."  Whereat  Pound  gently 
laughed  again,  and  again  Mr.  Totherow  blushed 
with  annoyance.  He  was  aware  that  it  was  much 
easier  to  talk  of  finding  the  money  than  to  do  it. 

"I  haven't  any  money  in  the  bank,"  said  Pound. 
"And  you  couldn't  hold  it  if  I  had.  But  I  have 
a  valid  claim  against  Lansing  &  Co.  for  three  hun- 
dred and  twenty  thousand  dollars.  So  help  me, 

I'll  bring  suit  against  them  tomorrow  for  the 

178 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


whole  amount,  and  see  that  every  newspaper  in 
St.  Paul  and  Minneapolis  gets  the  story — just  how 
Mr.  Charles  Francis  Lansing,  the  eminent  'reg- 
ular' commission  merchant,  took  his  confiding  cus- 
tomers' stock  orders  and  sent  'em  over  to  a  buck- 
etshop.  It  will  make  quite  a  sensation,  I  judge. 
We'll  wipe  the  slate  right  now  and  pass  receipts 
in  full,  or  I'll  bring  that  suit  tomorrow,  so  help 
me!" 

Mr.  Lansing  gave  one  gasp  and  collapsed. 
They  wiped  the  slate. 

Pound  went  home  shortly  after  four  o'clock 
— rather  tired,  but  quite  happy.  In  the  modest 
flat  he  and  Emma  opened  the  stout  black  bag  and 
looked  admiringly  down  at  its  contents — which 
consisted  of  eighty  thousand  dollars  in  banknotes. 
Not  a  soul  besides  themselves  could  assert  a  legal 
claim  to  a  dollar  of  it. 

They  were  not  usually  a  demonstrative  pair. 
But  now  Emma  leaned  affectionately  against  her 
husband's  shoulder  and  laid  an  arm  lightly  about 
his  neck.  It  reminded  her  of  the  time  she  had 
stood  in  a  dingy  hallway  in  Chicago,  peering  at  a 

179 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


tiny  roll  of  bills  that  nestled  in  her  handbag,  and 
had  decided  to  cast  in  her  lot  with  the  man  who 
was  now  her  husband.  The  heap  of  tangible 
wealth  in  the  black  bag  looked  impassively  up  at 
them.  To  such  satisfactory  proportions  had  that 
little  nest-egg  in  her  handbag  grown. 


180 


CHAPTER  VII 

i 

WHERE  THE  MONEY  CAME  FROM 

JOHN  and  Emma  sat  day-dreaming  in  the 
parlor  of  their  modest  flat.  Emma's 
striped  yellow  cat,  which  had  been  curled 
in  a  comfortable  doze  on  the  foot  of  the  green 
plush  sofa,  awoke  and  got  up,  stretching  herself 
with  arched  back  and  contentedly-waving  tail. 
This  commonplace  object,  striking  upon  the  man's 
blank  eyes,  half  broke  the  musing  spell,  half  re- 
called him  to  himself. 

He  looked  over  at  his  wife,  smiling  in  an  absent 
way.  "Ten  months  ago  today,"  he  said,  confess- 
ing his  thought,  "I  was  a  telegraph  operator  at 
eighty  dollars  a  month." 

Emma  smiled  back,  the  dream  still  in  her  dark 
eyes.  "Yes,"  she  said,  "ten  months  ago — and  I 
was  working  a  ticker  machine  for  fourteen  dollars 

a  week." 

181 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Their  mutual  thought  really  referred  to  the 
stout  black  bag  which  stood  on  the  floor  between 
them  under  the  edge  of  the  centertable  and  con- 
tained eighty  thousand  dollars  in  banknotes.  It 
was  the  strong  consciousness  of  the  bag  and  its 
contents,  subtly  intoxicating  their  minds,  that  set 
them  a-dreaming.  They  were  like  two  inventors 
who  had  been  experimenting  eagerly  and  with 
high  hopes  and  had  now  obtained  sure  proof  that 
the  invention  would  work.  They  had,  in  a  meas- 
ure, cashed  in.  Only  in  a  measure,  however.  For 
they  felt  that  in  the  bucketshop  they  possessed  a 
money-making  machine  of  whose  almost  unlimited 
possibilities  the  banknotes  in  the  black  bag  were 
merely  a  first  fruit.  They  didn't,  by  any  means, 
propose  to  stop  with  only  eighty  thousand  dollars. 

"We  must  get  us  a  better  flat,  Johnny,"  Emma 
observed,  musing  happily  again.  "There  are 
some  swell  ones  over  in  the  new  Cleopatra.  We 
can  afford  the  best  there  is." 

"Yes,"  Pound  assented  absently.  He  was  not, 
in  fact,  at  all  thinking  of  flats.  Although  for 

some  time  he  had  been  able  to  command  consider- 

182 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


able  sums  of  money,  yet  the  money  all  lay  con- 
stantly at  hazard — he  hadn't  cashed  in.  So  he 
had  felt  rather  bound  to  live  in  a  modest,  econom- 
ical manner.  Now  he  felt  secure ;  he  could  fairly 
see  a  river  of  banknotes  flowing  toward  him,  and 
he  could  think  of  a  great  many  pleasant  things  to 
do  with  money  besides  renting  flats. 

And  after  a  little  interruption  caused  by  the 
May  panic,  the  river  of  cash  flowed.  That  panic, 
while  bringing  the  first  large  consignment  of  cur- 
rency to  the  Pounds,  brought  far  other  results 
elsewhere.  To  Mr.  Lansing,  the  eminent,  "regu- 
lar" commission  merchant  whom  Pound  had 
gulled,  it  brought  long  and  painful  calculations  as 
to  whether  he  would  be  able  to  pull  through  or 
be  obliged  to  go  into  bankruptcy;  and  out  in  the 
country,  along  the  line  of  the  bucketshop's  private 
wire,  it  brought  much  gloom. 

In  the  little  private  office  at  the  rear  of  S. 
Bloom  &  Co.'s  emporium  at  Bremen  sat  father 
and  son  on  the  morning  of  May  tenth.  The  door 
was  locked  and  Solly  was  in  tears.  Unutterably 
dejected,  his  head  bowed  to  his  breast,  he  wiped 

183 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


his  eyes  with  a  limp  handkerchief.  He  had  taken 
off  his  two  diamond  rings  sacrificially,  and  laid 
them  on  a  corner  of  the  battered  little  desk.  S. 
Bloom,  Sr.,  sat  at  the  desk,  his  fat  shoulders 
bent,  his  dim,  woebegone  eyes  fixed  upon  his  son. 

Such  was  the  denouement  of  Solly's  dazzling 
operations  in  stocks  through  the  branch  office  of 
the  bucketshop.  When  the  market  broke  on  the 
eighth  he  had  appropriated  the  entire  bank 
account  of  S.  Bloom  &  Co.  to  keep  good  his  mar- 
gins, thinking  the  market  would  go  up  again  next 
day  and  he  would  restore  the  money.  But  next 
day  was  the  panic. 

In  the  office  of  the  First  National  Bank  Mr. 
Barlow,  the  President,  bent  anxiously  over  some 
figures  on  a  sheet  of  letter  paper,  which  he 
hastily  concealed  when  a  customer  entered.  His 
prematurely-wrinkled  face  looked  quite  haggard 
that  day.  He  had  kept  good  his  margins  on  six 
hundred  shares  of  Copper  through  the  panic,  and 
so  saved  himself  from  being  wiped  out.  But  in 
order  to  do  so  he  had  wired  six  thousand  dollars 
to  the  main  office  of  the  bucketshop  in  St.  Paul 

184 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


the  day  before.  Now,  six  thousand  dollars  was 
more  ready  money  than  he  personally  had  pos- 
sessed. 

Greggs,  secretary  of  the  gristmill,  was  very  low- 
spirited,  also.  He  had  explained  to  his  wife 
manfully  why  they  couldn't  build  the  addition  to 
the  house  that  they  had  been  saving  up  money 
for.  She  took  it  bravely,  waiting  until  he  was 
out  of  sight  before  she  cried. 

Bill  Miller,  the  teamster,  emerged  from  Jo 
Hartwick's  sample-room  in  amazement.  Jo  had 
not  only  refused  him  credit  for  a  glass  of  beer, 
but  had  demanded  instant  payment  of  the  stand- 
ing score  and  "cussed"  him.  Never  had  Bill  seen 
jjo  in  such  bad  humor.  He  couldn't  account  for 
it— not  knowing  that  Jo  had  been  "long"  a  hun- 
dred shares  of  Sugar,  and  had  lost  a  whole  quar- 
ter's profits. 

Three  miles  out  of  town  George  Hewlett  was 
doggedly  plowing  some  corn  land.  He  had  dis- 
charged one  of  his  three  hired  men  that  morning. 
Doggedly  plowing,  he  found  himself  still  engulfed 
in  surprise.  He  simply  couldn't  understand  that 

185 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


panic,  and  he  was  tormented  by  a  desire  to  hitch 
up,  drive  to  town  and  find  out  whether,  upon 
further  investigation,  it  hadn't  turned  out  to  be 
just  a  mistake. 

But  this  merely  dumfounded  state  was  of  short 
duration.  Within  a  week  Pound  issued  a  pam- 
phlet compiled  from  the  New  York  newspapers, 
explaining  all  about  the  panic.  Reading  this 
pamphlet,  Mr.  Hewlett  understood  that  the  panic 
had  been,  so  to  speak,  a  mere  inadvertence ;  one 
of  those  incidental  aberrations  from  which  noth- 
ing human  is  entirely  free.  Indeed,  the  pamphlet 
comforted  him  so  much  that  he  soon  borrowed 
two  hundred  dollars  and  bought  a  hundred  shares 
of  Atchison. 

One  by  one  they  forgot  their  losses  and  came 
back  into  the  game,  bringing  others  with  them. 
In  six  weeks  the  bucketshop  was  doing  a  bigger 
business  than  ever.  Hewlett,  for  example,  was 
a  man  of  influence,  rather  past  middle  age,  angu- 
lar, bilious,  restless,  of  unimpeachable  character 
save  for  an  occasional  overindulgence  in  hard 

cider.    He  was  active  in  the  church,  and  the  same 

186 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


nervous  egotism  which  incited  him  to  debate  with 
the  minister  led  him  to  tout  for  the  bucketshop 
that  had  captured  his  imagination.  He  absorbed 
Pound's  market  letters,  read  the  market  gossip 
in  the  newspapers,  and  suffered  a  not  uncommon 
delusion  that  he  knew  all  about  the  "situation." 
He  drove  to  town  nearly  every  day,  invariably 
visiting  the  bucketshop.  Sometimes  he  brought  a 
farmer  friend,  or  two  or  three  of  them,  whom  he 
would  place  before  the  blackboard  while  he  de- 
livered them  a  lecture  on  the  stock  market, 
exactly  as  though  he  were  the  hired  barker  of  the 
show,  delighting  to  exhibit  his  knowledge  before 
them. 

As  for  the  character  of  this  knowledge— among 
other  show-window  items — the  bucketshop  posted 
every  Saturday  the  weekly  statement  of  the  asso- 
ciated banks  of  New  York.  One  Saturday  as 
Brewer,  the  swarthy  little  telegraph  operator,  was 
chalking  up  the  figures,  running  into  hundreds  of 
millions  of  dollars,  he  heard  Hewlett  say  to  a 
farmer  friend:  "There  you  can  see  what  sort  of 
backing  this  concern's  got.  That  is  the  statement 

187 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


of  its  bank  account  in  New  York."  The  chubby 
telegraph  operator  nearly  fell  over. 

Presently,  again,  Brewer  had  business  of  a  con- 
fidential nature  at  the  bank.  President  Barlow's 
mysterious  friend — who  was  none  other  than 
President  Barlow  himself — was  buying  more 
stocks  and  using  the  bank's  money  for  margins. 
Presently,  also,  Mr.  Lewis,  the  bucketshop's  local 
manager,  had  a  mysterious  client  of  his  own,  who 
met  him  furtively  and  gave  him  orders  to  buy 
stocks,  as  well  as  the  money  with  which  to  mar- 
gin the  orders.  This  secretive  client  was  none 
other  than  Solly  Bloom. 

This  was  happening  not  only  at  Bremen,  but 
at  all  other  branch  offices  of  the  bucketshop — at 
Wyandotte,  Luperville,  Prairie  Center,  Dunes,  at 
a  dozen  thriving  country  towns;  then  at  fifteen, 
at  twenty,  at  twenty-five.  For  Pound  was  steadily 
pushing  the  private  wire  farther  and  farther  out, 
tapping  new  territory,  opening  new  branch  offices. 
Hamilton,  to  whom  this  missionary  work  largely 
fell,  was  kept  on  the  jump.  Nearly  everywhere 

the  lure  caught.     People  flocked  in  to  deal  in 

188 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


stocks  and  grain  on  margin.  The  innocence  of 
many  of  these  country  speculators  was  appalling. 
Hamilton  candidly  confessed  that  it  simply  para- 
lyzed him.  Almost  anywhere  the  New  York 
bank  statement  might  easily  have  been  palmed 
off  as  a  veracious  exhibit  of  the  bucketshop's  own 
cash  resources. 

At  Dunes,  for  example,  a  chance  drummer — 
who  had  been  told  all  about  it  by  a  cousin  living 
in  New  York — explained  to  the  hotelkeeper  what 
a  wonderful  property  Metropolitan  Street  Rail- 
way was.  On  the  strength  of  this  important  in- 
formation the  landlord  began  a  bull  campaign  in 
the  stock  and  within  six  months  had  lost  his  hotel 
and  all  other  belongings.  At  Butte,  an  old  fel- 
low whom  nobody  knew  hung  around  the  office 
for  weeks,  dropping  in  nearly  every  day,  reading 
the  gossip,  watching  the  quotations,  speaking  to 
no  one.  He  was  shabbily  dressed  and  the  office 
men  set  him  down  for  a  harmless  tramp.  One 
day  he  appeared  with  a  certificate  of  deposit  for 
ten  thousand  dollars  and  bought  a  thousand  shares 
of  American  Ice  at  thirty-four.  When  the  stock 

189 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


dropped  to  twenty-five  he  put  up  another  ten  thou- 
sand dollars,  and  another  ten  thousand  when  it 
reached  fifteen.  At  eight  he  closed  the  trade, 
having  lost  twenty-six  thousand  dollars.  They 
discovered  that  he  was  an  old  miner,  who  in  forty 
toilsome  years  had  managed  to  save  thirty  thou- 
sand dollars.  He  sought  no  advice,  made  no  com- 
plaint. Receiving  the  check  for  four  thousand 
dollars,  which  was  all  he  had  left,  he  merely  re- 
marked, "Easy  come,  easy  go,"  and  stumped  out. 
Almost  every  other  office  had  its  "prize  sucker" 
who  lost  heavily,  besides  the  little  suckers  who 
lost  comparatively  small  sums. 

This,  as  Hamilton  remarked,  was  the  great 
beauty  of  the  country  trade — two  times  out  of 
three  it  would  stick  to  a  losing  deal  until  it  was 
plumb  busted. 

Naturally,  Pound  was  hungry  for  that  trade. 
As  profits  piled  up  he  constantly  extended  his  wire 
net  to  the  west  and  north  into  Canada.  The  wire 
lengthened  through  Montana,  Idaho,  Washing- 
ton, Manitoba ;  tapped  Seattle,  Winnipeg,  and  fat 

country  towns  between.     The  winter  after  the 

190 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


panic  some  forty  branch  offices  sent  their  'daily 
tribute  to  headquarters.  One  afternoon  the  buck- 
etshop's  cash  in  bank  touched  four  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars. 

The  memoranda  lay  on  Pound's  desk.  He 
looked  at  the  total  with  a  swelling  heart — 
$408,674. 

"I'm  going  East,"  he  said  abruptly.  "I'm  go- 
ing to  cover  this  country  and  Canada.  Why  not?" 

Hamilton,  to  whom  the  remark  was  addressed, 
thoughtfully  gnawed  his  red  mustache.  "You 
can't  handle  many  more  offices  from  here,"  he 
suggested. 

"No,"  Pound  assented,  "but  we  can  handle 
some  offices  from  Toronto,  some  from  Chicago, 
some  from  Buffalo— put  a  manager  in  each  of 
those  places  who  can  run  the  branches.  I  guess 
I  can  find  four  or  five  men  who  won't  steal  the 
bank  roll  over  night." 

Hamilton  perceived  that  Pound's  mind  was 
made  up,  and  it  wasn't  his  business,  anyway. 
"There's  one  office  we  ought  to  lose,"  he  observed 
presently.  "I  guess  we  can't  lose  it  any  too  quick, 

191 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


either.  There'll  be  a  grand  blow-out  at  Bremen 
one  of  these  days." 

They  had  spoken  of  this  before.  Mr.  Barlow, 
president  of  the  First  National  Bank,  had  already 
lost  nearly  forty  thousand  dollars  in  his  stock- 
market  operations  through  the  bucketshop.  They 
knew  well  enough  that  he  didn't  have  that  much 
money  to  lose.  A  blow-out,  such  as  they  contem- 
plated, usually  occasioned  much  scandal  and  re- 
sentment. They  judged  that  it  would  be  prudent 
to  close  the  Bremen  branch  of  the  bucketshop 
before  the  event  occurred. 

Pound  considered  it  a  moment.  The  Bremen 
branch  was  quite  profitable.  Naturally,  he  hated 
to  lose  the  profit.  Yet  a  man  must  sometimes  sac- 
rifice something  for  the  sake  of  his  reputation, 
and,  after  all,  with  fifty  other  offices  in  operation, 
Bremen  was  only  a  small  detail. 

"Go  out  there  tomorrow,  Ham,  and  close  the 
office,"  he  said  conclusively.  "Tell  Barlow  he 
can  send  his  orders  and  his  margin  money  direct 
to  this  office  as  before.  We'll  fill  his  orders  for 

him — as  long  as  his  money  lasts."     Thus,  quite 

192 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


lightly,  he  disposed  of  the  detail,  pulling  down  the 
roller  top  of  his  desk.  "And  I  say,  Ham,"  he 
added  rather  crossly,  "don't  get  full  out  there. 
You  might  blab  to  somebody." 

In  the  high  tide  of  success  Pound  was  quite 
peremptory  with  his  subordinates — even  with 
Hamilton,  who  had  served  him  so  well.  In  fact, 
if  Hamilton  had  not  served  him  so  long  and  so 
well  he  would  not  have  tolerated  the  lank,  round- 
shouldered  man's  one  great  foible.  In  his  success 
Pound  was  getting  the  name  of  being  a  rather 
harsh,  irascible  man. 

Hamilton  dutifully  closed  the  Bremen  office. 
Mr.  Lewis,  who  had  managed  that  branch  from 
the  beginning  and  found  the  employment  profit- 
able, arranged  to  fill  the  gap  to  some  extent  by 
opening  a  littler  independent  bucketshop  of  his  own. 
But  Mr.  Barlow  had  never  dealt  with  Mr.  Lewis. 

The  banker  continued  to  send  orders  for  the 
purchase  and  sale  of  stock  direct  to  the  St.  Paul 
headquarters;  also,  money  with  which  to  margin 
the  orders.  Sometimes  luck  seemed  to  favor  him, 
but  not  for  long.  The  devoted  man,  struggling 
to  get  out  of  his  mire,  plunged  on,  only  to  find 

193 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


himself  more  deeply  involved.  By  mail,  from 
time  to  time,  he  remitted  various  sums  to  St.  Paul, 
following  the  remittance  by  a  telegraphic  order 
in  cipher  to  buy  or  sell  certain  stock. 

Jn  May,  when  the  branch  office  at  Bremen  had 
been  closed  three  months,  Pound  received  an  un- 
usual communication  from  Mr.  Barlow.  The 
letter  itself  was  merely  the  ordinary  terse  state- 
ment that  the  amount  inclosed  was  to  be  placed 
to  the  writer's  credit  on  account  of  margins  to 
cover  an  order  that  would  be  sent  by  wire.  It 
was  the  inclosure  that  was  unusual.  This  con- 
sisted of  two  drafts  drawn  by  the  First  National 
of  Bremen,  one  on  New  York  and  one  on  Chi- 
cago, each  for  twenty  thousand  dollars.  Even 
as  Pound  was  contemplating  the  drafts  Tommy 
Watrous — a  sort  of  confidential  utility  man — 
thrust  his  curly,  blond  head  in  the  private  room  to 
say  that  Mr.  Barlow  had  just  wired  an  order  to 
buy  twenty  thousand  shares  of  Union  Pacific  at 
the  opening  of  the  market. 

"All  right,"  said  Pound.  "Fill  the  order  for 
him,  and  wire  him  that  it  is  filled.  Then  take 
these  two  drafts  over  to  the  Norse  National  and 

194 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


have  'em  telegraph  New  York  and  Chicago  to 
see  whether  the  drafts  are  good." 

About  an  hour  later  the  Norse  National  tele- 
phoned that  it  had  received  answers  from  New 
York  and  Chicago;  neither  of  the  drafts  was 
good.  Pound  beckoned  Tommy. 

"Just  scratch  off  that  twenty  thousand  shares 
of  Union  Pacific,"  he  said.  "Brother  Barlow's 
blow-out  has  arrived." 

The  manner  of  its  arrival  was  as  follows :  Mr. 
Barlow  left  the  bank  about  four  o'clock  and  went 
home.  Bill  Miller,  the  drayman,  remembered 
afterward  that  he  had  met  Mr.  Barlow  on  the 
Bremen  House  corner  just  a  few  minutes  past 
four,  and  talked  with  him  about  removing  the 
ashes  from  the  basement  of  the  bank.  At  home 
the  banker  went  upstairs  to  his  bedroom.  His 
wife  and  daughter  noticed  that  he  looked  ill  and 
was  absent-minded.  But  he  was  never  a  com- 
municative man,  and  of  late  illness  and  absence 
of  mind  had  been  fairly  chronic  with  him.  About 
half-past  five  his  daughter  saw  him  leaving  the 
house  by  the  back  door,  and  thought  he  was  going 
to  take  a  stroll  before  supper,  for  it  was  a  beau- 
tiful spring  day. 

19$ 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Directly  after  supper  Miles,  the  young  cashier 
of  the  bank,  called  to  see  Mr.  Barlow.  He  seemed 
rather  agitated,  and  the  women  surmised  that 
something  untoward  had  happened  at  the  bank — 
they  even  imagined  the  loss  of  several  hundred 
dollars  on  some  loan.  The  cashier  waited  nearly 
an  hour  on  the  front  porch,  and  returned  at  half- 
past  eight.  By  that  time  the  women  were 
alarmed,  for  Mr.  Barlow  never  stayed  away  from 
home  in  the  evening.  Early  next  morning  two 
boys,  bent  on  fishing,  found  Mr.  Barlow's  hat 
on  the  bank  of  the  pool  above  the  gristmill;  but 
it  was  not  until  nearly  four  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon that  they  found  his  body  in  the  pool.  The 
gristmill,  with  its  deep,  tree-shaded  pool,  had 
been  one  of  the  objects  which  Hamilton  had  ad- 
mired when  he  came  to  town  to  open  the  branch 
office  of  the  bucketshop. 

Miles,  the  young  cashier,  was  notified  at  once; 
but  he  waited  until  the  regular  hour,  four  o'clock, 
before  he  closed  the  bank.  Then  he  went  to  the 
railroad  station  and  sent  a  telegram  to  the  Comp- 
troller of  the  Currency.  Leaving  the  station  he 
saw  a  crowd  on  the  Bremen  House  corner,  and 

196 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


went  around  the  other  way  to  avoid  it.  He 
didn't  wish  to  be  questioned. 

Bill  Miller  was  in  the  center  of  the  crowd.  "I 
was  coming  up  the  street  here,"  he  said  excitedly, 
"just  a  little  past  four  o'clock — might  'a'  been  as 
much  as  five  minutes  past — and  I  seen  him  coming 
across  the  crossing  from  the  bank,  looking  down 
at  his  feet  like  he  was  studyin'  something  as 
usual ;  and  I  thinks  to  myself,  thinks  I :  'By  Jolly, 
he's  lookin'  sick.' "  Thus,  excitedly,  Bill  re- 
hearsed his  last  encounter  with  the  banker. 

The  crowd  hung  breathlessly  upon  his  words. 
The  tragedy  gripped  every  imagination.  Only 
yesterday,  president  of  the  First  National,  one  of 
the  richest  men  in  town,  living  in  a  brick  house 
with  flower-beds  on  both  sides  of  the  lawn,  keep- 
ing a  fine  horse  and  buggy,  able  to  command  at 
will  every  resource  of  comfort  or  pleasure;  and 
now— Zeke,  the  colored  porter  of  the  Bremen 
House,  told  them  just  how  the  body  looked  when 
they  dragged  it  out!  Zeke  himself  was  fairly 
ashen,  the  eyes  popping  from  his  head,  his  tongue 
stumbling  over  the  words. 

It  came  upon  Bremen  with  stunning  force. 
197 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


The  hotel  clerk  deserted  his  desk  and  let  the 
Chicago  drummer  clamor  in  vain  while  he  edged 
into  the  crowd,  open-mouthed,  and  listened.  Mr. 
Riley,  the  grocer,  rested  his  tin  scoop  full  of  sugar 
on  the  counter  while  he  repeated  to  Mrs.  Truman 
what  Hank  Barnard,  the  marshal,  had  told  him 
about  the  finding  of  the  body.  Jo  Hartwick,  in 
the  sample-room,  forgot  to  make  change  and  ab- 
stractedly offered  matches  when  a  cigar  was 
ordered,  as  he  listened  to  Hank's  account. 

"Too  bad  for  the  women  folks,"  Jo  commented 
absently.  "His  wife's  a  nice  woman  and  his 
girl's  a  nice  girl.  Tough  for  them."  Mechani- 
cally Jo  wiped  the  bar  again,  although  it  was  per- 
fectly dry.  "I'm  owing  the  city  a  thousand  dol- 
lars license  money  the  first  of  July,"  he  observed 
with  a  far-away  look.  "I  just  got  together  the 
last  of  the  money  o'  Tuesday.  It's  all  on  deposit 
over  there."  He  nodded  in  the  direction  of  the 
First  National  Bank. 

To  many  others  Mr.  Barlow's  tragedy  had  a 
personal  dart.  Even  as  they  rehearsed  the  find- 
ing of  the  body  they  wondered  whether,  possibly, 
he  had  fallen  in  by  accident,  and  if  he  hadn't — 
what  about  the  bank? 

198 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Avoiding  the  crowd  and  walking  rapidly,  the 
young  cashier  reached  home.  He  found  his  still 
younger  wife  in  tears,  clasping  Agnes,  aged  two, 
as  though,  somehow,  the  deep  pool  threatened 
her,  while  Justin,  aged  four,  stood  at  his  mother's 
knee,  knuckling  his  eyes  and  weeping  without 
knowing  why.  The  wife's  tears  were  of  pure 
pity  and  terror  over  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Barlow  and 
Esther  Barlow.  She  didn't  know  that  she  had 
any  other  cause  to  weep. 

Along  in  the  night  her  husband  told  her.  He 
was  only  twenty-seven.  He  owed  his  position  in 
the  bank  entirely  to  Mr.  Barlow,  who  had,  com- 
mercially speaking,  brought  him  up  from  a  youth. 
Naturally,  he  had  deferred  to  Mr.  Barlow.  He 
had  known  certain  things  were  not  right,  but  Mr. 
Barlow  had  assured  him  he  would  make  them 
right  in  a  short  time.  "I  never  touched  a  penny 
of  the  money,  Nellie;  but  I  suppose  they'll  blame 

me,"  he  said. 

Blamed,  indeed,  was  the  young  cashier  as  the 
townspeople  learned  how  the  bank  had  been 
looted.  Wrath  rapidly  displaced  pity,  especially 
among  the  stockholders  and  depositors. 

199 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Such  was  the  blow-out  of  which  Hamilton  had 
a  prevision  the  very  day  they  opened  the  bucket- 
shop,  and  which  he  and  Pound  had  clearly  fore- 
seen for  months.  Finally,  after  assessing  the 

i 

stockholders,  the  receiver  of  the  wrecked  bank 
managed  to  pay  the  depositors  eighty  cents  on 
the  dollar.  Other  interests  claimed  the  town's 
attention.  The  young  cashier  was  not  prosecuted. 
Gradually  the  whole  episode  lost  its  edge,  as  all 
such  episodes  do.  In  time  Mr.  Lewis  even  re- 
opened his  little  bucketshop  in  the  old  stand  above 
the  millinery  shop.  He  still  used  the  kitchen 
table,  the  six  wooden  chairs  and  the  bit  of  black- 
board which  constituted  the  original  plant.  Some 
of  the  painted  lines  on  the  blackboard  were  quite 
worn  off  with  much  marking  up  of  figures  and 
rubbing  them  out,  but  its  dull  surface  showed  no 
stain  of  blood  or  tears. 

Pound  heard  of  the  events  at  Bremen — mostly 
with  cynical  amusement.  To  his  whole  staff  he 
reiterated  the  instructions:  "Don't  tamper  with 
the  quotations.  What's  the  use  ?  They  can't  win, 

anyway.     Give  'em  the  figures  straight.     You 

200 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


couldn't  keep  money  in  the  pockets  of  those 
suckers  with  a  padlock." 

His  experience  seemed,  indeed,  fully  to  justify 
this  view.  Already  he  had  opened  central  offices 
at  Seattle,  Toronto,  Chicago  and  Buffalo,  from 
each  of  which  a  string  of  country  branches  was 
operated.  These  central  offices  were  necessarily, 
in  a  measure,  independent.  Each  had  its  own 
bank  roll,  settled  the  trades  at  its  branches  and 
paid  its  own  losses  without  reference  to  the  main 
establishment  in  St.  Paul.  This,  as  Pound  was 
aware,  laid  him  open  in  some  degree  to  treachery 
on  the  part  of  a  central  manager;  but  he  was  will- 
ing to  take  some  chances.  He  could  afford  to.  A 
flood  of  money  was  pouring  in  upon  him.  By 
the  time  Mr.  Lewis  reopened  his  little  shop  at 
Bremen  in  October  Pound's  big  concern  had  more 
than  eight  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  cash  on 
deposit  in  various  banks. 

That  was  success.  Yet  the  game  was  not  going 
Pound's  way  altogether,  by  any  means.  Another 
and  most  unexpected  element  had  entered. 


201 


FATE  TAKES  ADVANTAGE  OF  JOHN  POUND 

DIRECTLY   after  the   Pounds  took  pos- 
session of  their  new,  notably  swell  apart- 
ment in  the  Cleopatra,  Emma  proposed 
to  bring  on  her  younger  sister  May  from  Chicago 
to  live  with  them. 

Pound's  ideas  concerning  this  sister  were  neb- 
ulous. He  knew  that  she  and  Emma  had  lived 
together  in  Chicago ;  seemed  to  remember,  rather 
vaguely,  that  she  had  a  job  in  a  patent-medicine 
office,  addressing  circulars  or  something  of  that 
kind.  He  had  gathered,  indifferently,  certain 
broad  impressions  of  Emma's  home  and  child- 
hood  a  dubious  father,  somewhat  addicted  to 

drink  and  idleness,  with  a  domineering,  uncertain 
temper;  a  worried,  fretful,  fearful,  rather  incom- 
petent mother;  protracted  periods  of  hard  sled- 
ding in  a  money  way.  Somehow — indifferently, 
also — he  had  gathered  that  Emma,  the  older  sis- 

202 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


ter,  had  taken  May,  the  younger,  under  her 
vigorous  wing;  was  a  kind  of  elder-sister-guardian 
over  her.  He  knew,  for  example,  that  Emma 
sent  her  small  sums  of  money  from  time  to  time. 
So  much,  indefinitely,  he  had  gathered.  But  his 
total  interest  in  the  subject  was  slight. 

He  had,  however,  no  objection  whatever  to 
adopting  May  into  the  household — precisely  be- 
cause he  didn't  really  intend  to  depend  so  very 
much  upon  the  household  himself.  With  the  new 
freedom  to  spend  money  liberally  he  was  finding 
pleasant  ways  of  disposing  of  his  leisure  outside. 
With  Pound's  concurrence,  therefore,  Emma  went 
to  fetch  her  sister. 

Emma  was  away  a  week.  It  cannot  be  said 
that  her  husband  suffered  from  lonesomeness. 
He  was  making  a  number  of  amusing  acquaint- 
ances— men,  like  himself,  who  could  spend  money 
freely — and  there  was  no  lack  of  resources  for 
passing  an  evening  agreeably.  He  had  no  fault 
whatever  to  find  with  his  wife;  but  her  wire,  noti- 
fying him  that  she  would  be  at  home  next  day, 
evoked  a  vague  little  sense  of  boredom.  Going 
home  to  dinner  next  day  his  mind  was  a  bit  over- 

203 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


cast,  like  that  of  a  boy  returning  to  school  after 
a  vacation. 

Stepping  into  the  living  room,  he  discovered 
the  sisters  sitting  side  by  side.  They  arose,  and 
he  received  an  unexpected  impression.  Emma 
took  May's  hand,  glancing  at  her,  smiling  a  little, 
as  she  led  her  forward.  It  instantly  arrested 
Pound,  for  he  perceived  a  quality  which  he  had 
not  suspected  in  his  wife.  Toward  this  younger 
sister  she  seemed  protective,  tender,  fairly 
motherly.  But  the  real  surprise  was  May  her- 
self. 

She  was  the  younger  by  five  years,  slender  and 
graceful.  Her  hair  was  less  dark  than  Emma's, 
her  eyes  more  brown.  Her  brow  was  sloping, 
her  lips  and  chin  full  and  tender,  so  that  her  pro- 
file was  really  charming.  Giving  Pound  her  slim 
hand,  smiling,  she  blushed  from  sheer  nervous- 
ness and  somehow  reminded  him  of  a  shy,  flut- 
tered bird.  He  met  her  with  hearty  jocularity. 
She  smiled  and  laughed  with  faint  blushes  and 
little  nervous  movements  of  her  head,  often  turn- 
ing to  Emma  as  though  referring  Pound's  jocular 
sallies  to  her,  as  a  dutiful  child  to  its  master.  He 

204 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


kept  thinking  of  a  bird,  docile  and  trustful,  yet 
constantly  with  little  uneasy  flutterings  of  a  native 
instinct  to  fly  away. 

He  found  himself  sitting  beside  her  on  the 
Davenport,  exerting  himself  to  amuse  her,  try- 
ing to  make  her  laugh— so  to  speak,  trying  to  coax 
her  into  security,  a  good  deal  as  one  courts  a  shy, 
wild  creature  of  the  woods  which  now  comes  tim- 
orously near,  now  flits  away.  At  dinner  he  sud- 
denly insisted  that  they  must  go  to  the  theatre. 
He  left  the  table,  went  to  the  telephone  and  com- 
missioned a  scalper  to  get  his  seats,  regardless  of 
price;  then  he  ordered  an  automobile  for  the 
evening. 

Thus  May  at  once  became  a  prime  factor  in 
the  house.  Pound  felt  toward  her  as  toward  a 
dear  child.  It  delighted  him  to  have  her  enjoy 
unaccustomed  things  which  his  money  could  pro- 
cure. Within  a  week,  he  presented  Emma  with 
a  fine  electric  runabout,  and  a  little  later  he  bought 
a  touring  car.  He  encouraged  Emma  to  give 
May  a  liberal  credit  at  the  best  dressmakers. 

One  afternoon  Emma  brought  her  into  the  liv- 
ing room  to  show  Pound  her  first  evening  gown. 

205 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


May  reddened  nervously  and  laughed  a  little  with 
a  kind  of  happy  embarrassment,  as  though  she 
half  begged  to  be  let  off  from  the  exhibition.  Al- 
ways, when  Emma  posed  her  and  turned  her 
around  to  show  off  her  gown,  she  rustled  back 
to  the  elder  sister's  side  with  a  shy  instinct  to 
hide. 

"Pretty  swell,  eh,  Johnny?"  Emma  commented, 
admiringly.  "Don't  she  belong  to  it,  all  right?" 

"Charming!"  said  Pound,  smiling. 

May  stooped  and  passed  her  hand  lightly  down 
the  delicate,  shining  fabric.  He  perceived  how 
wonderfully  dear  it  was  to  her. 

"As  you  say,  it  exactly  belongs  to  her,"  he 
added,  for  he  felt  that  a  sense  of  obligation  em- 
barrassed her. 

She  glided  swiftly  to  him,  looking  earnestly  up 
in  his  face.  "You  know  I  thank  you,"  she  said, 
breathlessly.  "I  never  had  anything  pretty  until 
I  came  to  you.  Thank  you — Johnny."  The  man's 
heart  expanded. 

Emma  and  May  had  not  returned  from 
Chicago  alone.  A  young  man  named  Tommy 

Watrous  came  with  them.    As  Emma  explained, 

206 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Tommy  was  that  cashier  in  the  bucketshop  of 
Hilpricht  &  Co.  who  had  given  her  the  tip  that  a 
detective  was  on  their  trail.  She  had  encountered 
him  in  Chicago  by  chance.  Hilpricht  &  Co.  had 
gone  up  and  Tommy  was  out  of  a  job.  So  Emma 
had  told  him  to  come  along;  Pound  would  find 
a  place  for  him  somewhere. 

Watrous  was  a  mere  youth,  hardly  as  old  as 
Emma,  slim  and  of  rather  effeminate  appearance. 
A  faint,  girlish  pink  lingered  in  his  smooth  cheeks. 
He  had  deep  blue  eyes,  and  the  yellow  hair  curled 
over  his  forehead.  Pound  accepted  him  good- 
naturedly  and  gave  him  a  minor  position.  Soon, 
however,  Tommy  won  advancement.  The  rapid- 
ly-expanding business  of  the  bucketshop  constantly 
required  more  bright  men,  and  Pound  was  not 
long  in  discovering  that  Tommy,  in  spite  of  his 
girlish  blue  eyes  and  curly  hair,  was  very  bright. 
Tommy  was  a  frequent  visitor  at  the  swell  apart- 
ment ;  indeed,  was  fairly  at  home  there.  On  this 
social  side  he  was  not  only  good  company,  but 
quite  useful.  If  Pound  didn't  come  home  to 
dinner— which  happened  rather  often— Tommy 
was  company  for  the  ladies.  Or  if  Pound  and 

207 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Emma  spent  an  evening  out  when  it  was  not  ex- 
actly convenient  to  have  May  along  Tommy  could 
take  her  to  the  theatre. 

Some  time  before  May  appeared  Pound  had 
begun  to  live  much  more  freely — if  not,  on  the 
whole,  more  commendably.  Several  resorts  of 
the  sporty  and  extravagant  began  to  know  him 
familiarly.  Presently,  when  he  dropped  in  after 
office  hours,  there  would  be  somebody  to  call  him 
familiarly  by  his  first  name.  Sociability  progressed 
rapidly  in  that  atmosphere.  When  half  a  dozen 
of  them  were  seated  comfortably  around  a  table, 
and  a  waiter  whose  deferential  expectancy  was 
proportioned  to  the  liberality  of  their  tips  stood 
by,  the  order  might  be  small  beer  or  highballs  or 
a  magnum  of  champagne,  just  as  it  happened. 
The  talk  was  very  much  of  baseball,  horse-races 
and  prize-fights  and  the  odds  thereon. 

There  was  "Doc"  Lester,  a  huge  man  of  forty, 
with  popping  gray  eyes  and  a  neatly-trimmed 
brown  beard — neatly  dressed  also,  save  for  an 
enormous  diamond  ring — whose  composed,  delib- 
erate air  gave  additional  force  to  his  broad  jokes. 
The  "Doctor"  was  really  a  flourishing  bookmaker 

208 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


and  poolroom  operator.  He  occupied  another 
of  the  swell  apartments  at  the  Cleopatra,  and  his 
good-natured  wife  was  soon  on  friendly  terms 
with  Mrs.  Pound.  There  was  Mullens,  the  rich 
horseman,  very  red  and  fat,  consuming  re- 
markable quantities  of  liquor,  bestrewing  his 
crimson  path  with  banknotes.  There  was  wiry 
little  Pemberton,  who  had  a  Jewish  name  before 
he  made  a  pile  in  timber  land,  drinking  abste- 
miously and  always  badgering  the  others  to  make 
bets  with  him,  which  he  usually  won. 

It  was  by  no  means  an  exclusively  masculine 
sociability.  Quite  often  the  Lesters,  the  Mullenses 
and  the  Pounds,  or  some  four  of  the  six,  made 
up  a  little  party,  took  dinner  downtown  and  went 
to  the  theatre.  In  the  most  expensive  dining- 
rooms  they  were  well  known  and  had  the  best  ser- 
vice, for  they  spent  money  liberally.  Sometimes 
Mullens  had  the  crowd  out  to  his  own  big  house 
for  dinner. 

Now,  Emma  really  liked  good-natured  Mrs. 
Lester.  But  this  social  life,  as  a  whole,  she  really 
didn't  like.  Aside  from  her  keen  interest  in  busi- 
ness, her  tastes  were  quite  simple  and  domestic, 

209 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


and  her  mind  was  essentially  of  an  orderly,  eco- 
nomical sort.  It  disturbed  her  to  see  Mullens 
give  a  ten-dollar  bill  for  a  tip,  much  as  an  immoral 
act  disturbs  an  orthodox  person.  No  matter  how 
much  money  one  had,  she  couldn't  see  the  sense 
in  just  throwing  it  away.  Two  bottles  of  cham- 
pagne for  six  or  seven  persons  might  be  well 
enough;  but  when  it  got  up  to  four  she  was  an- 
noyed. This  was  not  altogether  on  the  ground  of 
cost,  either.  She  knew  well  enough  it  wasn't 
really  good  for  her  husband  to  be  sitting  up  night 
after  night  guzzling  champagne.  She  knew,  at 
the  same  time,  an  objection  from  her  would  carry 
little  weight.  In  the  general  interests  of  the  firm 
she  deemed  it  rather  better  that  she  should  go 
along  than  that  she  should  stay  at  home. 

By  personal  preference  she  would  often  have 
stayed  at  home.  The  riotous  Mullenses  especially 
were  distasteful  to  her.  Mrs.  Mullens  had  grown 
stout  and  middle-aged,  but  seemed  to  nourish  a 
delusion  that  she  could  conceal  both  facts — the 
one  by  violent  lacing,  the  other  by  powder,  paint 
and  hair  dye.  Mullens  himself  she  regarded  as 
merely  a  pig.  Sometimes  toward  the  end  of  an 

210 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


evening  he  told  stones  that  offended  her,  for 
aside  from  business  she  was  a  quite  proper,  con- 
ventional person.  In  these  parties  May  was  not 
included.  Without  the  subject  ever  having  been 
mentioned,  Pound  himself  realized  keenly  that  the 
general  Mullens  flavor,  toward  the  end  of  an 
evening,  was  not  at  all  suitable  for  her. 

Yet  Pound  seemed  to  take  increasing  de- 
light in  this  sporty  and  bibulous  company.  About 
as  eften  as  not  he  failed  to  come  home  for  dinner. 
Then,  sometimes,  he  would  leave  the  office  ab- 
ruptly in  the  middle  of  the  afternoon,  come 
straight  home  and  spend  the  whole  afternoon  and 
evening  there  very  quietly  and  gently. 

He  would  watch  May  make  some  foolish  thing 
with  a  bit  of  cloth  and  colored-silk  threads,  crack 
jokes  at  her,  trying  to  make  her  open  her  brown 
eyes  wide  with  surprise ;  trying  to  make  her  laugh 
low  and  sweetly;  noting  the  nervous,  graceful 
little  turnings  of  her  head,  her  little  starts  and 
faint  blushes,  as  of  a  fluttered  bird;  furtively  and 
long  watching  her  full,  tender  lips  and  chin. 

Something  astonishing  had  happened  to  him. 
He  was  very  successful,  fast  becoming  a  million- 

211 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


aire.  Yet  in  the  hour  of  accomplishing  the  only 
success  he  had  dreamed  of  he  had  been  secretly 
stricken  down  to  the  ground.  At  first  he  would 
hardly  believe  it.  Such  a  thing  had  happened  to 
him  only  once  in  his  life,  and  that  long  ago.  He 
felt  he  wasn't  the  sort  of  person  to  whom  it  would 
happen  again. 

It  was  a  month  after  the  incident  of  the  new 
evening  gown  that  he  knew  past  doubting.  Going 
home  in  the  middle  of  the  afternoon,  he  found 
May  alone  there.  That  was  a  thing  that  had  not 
happened  before,  as  she  and  Emma  were  almost 
constantly  together;  yet,  certainly,  it  was  a  thing 
that  might  well  happen  any  day.  Nevertheless 
as  he  saw  her  in  the  sitting  room  alone,  his  heart 
swelled  up  into  his  throat  as  though  he  had  been 
a  smitten,  callow  youth.  For  a  moment  he  could 
not  trust  himself  to  speak.  Then  they  talked  just 
as  they  had  often  talked  before — about  nothing 
in  particular.  She  laughed  at  his  brotherly  jokes, 
swaying  toward  him  a  little,  her  head  to  one  side, 
blushing  slightly,  showing  all  her  white  teeth.  She 
wouldn't  sing  for  him.  Oh,  no!  She  shook  her 
head,  laughing.  Perhaps  she  would  some  other 

212 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


time.  That  was  really  all.  They  heard  Emma 
come  in,  and  he  betook  himself  to  the  room  they 
called  the  library.  Standing  by  the  window  and 
staring  blankly  out,  he  heard  his  wife's  brisk, 
cheerful,  businesslike  voice.  It  grated  on  his 
nerves  like  a  file. 

"Why  didn't  I  wait?"  he  thought  with  despair. 
"I  might  have  married  her!" 

Then  he  was  filled  with  a  sullen,  angry  sort  of 
shame.  An  absurd  thing  to  happen  to  him— as 
though  he  were  a  green  youngster. 

Presently,  crouching  in  the  library  with  his 
wounds,  he  heard  another  voice  in  the  living  room 
— the  youthful,  merry  voice  of  Tommy  Watrous. 
He  heard  May  laughing— freely,  as  she  hardly 
ever  laughed  with  him;  heard  her  cry  out,  her 
sweet  voice  rising  in  a  plea  and  a  command.  He 
imagined  that  Tommy  had  played  some  familiar 
trick  upon  her.  .  .  .  This  young,  pink-cheeked, 
curly-headed  Tommy!  Naturally  he  and  she 
would  understand  each  other! 

That  was  another  misery,  helping  to  drive  him 
often  into  the  sporty  company  of  the  Lesters,  the 
Mullenses  and  their  like ;  helping  to  keep  him  up 

213 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


to  all  hours,  opening  champagne.  His  money 
couldn't  make  him  happy.  So  he  took  a  vengeful 
pleasure  in  burning  it  up. 

In  the  office  he  was  often  abominably  domi- 
neering and  irascible — mostly  from  that  constant, 
smothered  rage  because,  after  all,  he  couldn't 
make  his  dream  come  true.  Nevertheless,  he  was 
always  notably  considerate  of  Tommy  Watrous, 
always  spoke  courteously  to  him,  treating  him  as  a 
favorite.  Indeed,  before  Tommy  he  felt  a  subtle 
humiliation  which  made  him  fairly  deferential, 
for  Tommy  was  the  victor,  the  abler,  fitter  man. 
He  planned,  with  an  exquisite  suffering,  to  do 
something  handsome  by  Tommy  if  he  should 
marry  May.  Then  he  heard,  with  joy,  that 
Tommy  was  engaged  in  a  quite  different  amorous 
enterprise,  and  at  once  he  raised  Tommy's  salary 
prodigally. 

He  became  almost  feverishly  restless,  impa- 
tient of  nearly  everything — but  especially  im- 
patient of  his  very  patient  wife.  He  seemed  not 
to  wish  to  talk  with  her,  and  any  opposition  from 
her  made  him  lose  his  temper. 

For  a  long  while — more  than  five  months,  in 
214 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


fact — Emma  was  quite  at  loss.  For  all  her 
shrewdness  she  couldn't  understand  what  ailed 
the  man.  In  time  she  talked  it  over  frankly  with 
Tommy  Watrous,  who  was  very  often  at  the  swell 
apartment  and  who  usually  knew  about  what 
Pound  was  doing.  She  was  really  at  a  loss  for  a 
long  time. 

She  and  May  came  home  from  downtown  one 
afternoon,  and  May  happened  to  walk  into  the 
sitting-room  first.  She  wore  a  very  pretty  dress, 
with  a  wrap  and  hat  that  became  her  exceedingly. 
The  crisper  air  made  her  eyes  sparkle  and  gave 
a  warmer  color  to  her  cheeks.  Pound  was  in  the 
sitting-room,  a  prey  to  nameless  lonesomeness  and 
gnawing  dissatisfaction.  He  turned  his  head 
quickly  as  she  entered,  and  the  inexplicable  charm 
worked.  A  joyous  flood  swept  over  him. 

"Oh,  Mayl"  he  cried  with  delight,  and  started 
toward  her  heedlessly.  There  is  no  telling  what 
might  have  happened,  for  at  the  moment  the  man 
had  quite  lost  self-control.  But  he  took  only  a 
couple  of  steps  and  stopped  abruptly. 

May  herself  had  drawn  back,  her  lips  apart, 
rather  startled  at  this  brotherly  joke.  But  that 

215 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


was  not  what  stopped  him.  Emma  stood  on  the 
threshold,  looking  him  full  in  the  face.  He  made 
a  clumsy  joke,  at  which  May  laughed  a  little  ner- 
vously. But  Emma's  'dark,  steady  eyes  drew  his 
own.  He  had  to  look  at  her;  and  he  reddened, 
for  he  saw  that  at  length  she  had  seized  his  secret. 
Obviously,  it  was  not  a  secret  that  made  for  do- 
mestic harmony. 

Pound  hardly  knew  what  did  happen  the  next 
few  minutes.  He  found  himself  puttering  idiot- 
ically around  the  centertable,  speaking  at  random. 
Then  he  sneaked  off  to  the  library,  half  expect- 
ing that  Emma  would  follow  and  accuse  him.  He 
felt  again  that  sullen,  angry  shame.  Why  should 
this  fate  happen  to  him,  making  him  act  like  a 
moonstruck,  babbling  youth?  Presently  he  left 
the  house.  By  that  time  he  was  full  of  causeless 
and  defiant  wrath  against  Emma.  She  might,  he 
assured  himself  bitterly,  go  to  the  deuce,  for  all 
he  cared. 

Emma  heard  him  go,  but  had  not  the  slightest 
wish  to  intercept  him.  She  saw  to  it  first  that 
May  was  put  quite  at  ease.  Then  she  became 
very  thoughtful  indeed. 

216 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


The  next  afternoon  Tommy  Watrous  dropped 
in  at  the  swell  apartment,  as  he  had  a  habit  of 
doing.  Pound  had  charged  him  to  tell  Emma  that 
business  had  called  him  to  Chicago;  he  might  be 
gone  for  some  time.  Tommy  delivered  the  mes- 
sage casually.  As  casually  Emma  received  it. 
Tommy  had  another  and,  apparently,  a  more  sig- 
nificant bit  of  news.  That  day,  for  the  first  time, 
the  bucketshop's  total  bank  roll  reached  one  mil- 
lion dollars. 

"A  million  dollars,"  Emma  repeated,  musing, 
her  dark  eyes  veiled  by  long  lashes.  "Well, 
Tommy,"  she  commented  rather  absently,  "that's 
some  money.  I  believe  I  could  live  pretty  com- 
fortably on  a  million  dollars."  She  glanced  up  at 
Tommy,  a  slight,  enigmatical  smile  lurking  at  the 
corners  of  her  lips  and  in  her  brooding  eyes.  "I 
don't  know  but  I'll  try  it,"  she  added  softly. 


217 


CHAPTER  IX 

HOW  THE  PARTNERSHIP  WAS  DISSOLVED 

POUND  staid  away  for  two  months.    From 
Chicago   he   went   to   Toronto,    Buffalo, 
New  York;  then  to  Omaha  and  the  Pa- 
cific  Coast,   inspecting  the  bucketshop's  branch 
offices,  looking  out  for  promising  new  locations. 
In  his  absence  a  slow-and-sure  lieutenant  named 
Patterson  was  nominally  in  charge  at  headquar- 
ters; but  Emma  constantly  kept  a  capable  eye 
upon  business.     Every  day  Tommy  Watrous  re- 
ported to  her  all  that  happened. 

After  two  weeks,  Pound  wrote  his  wife,  briefly, 
mentioning  nothing  but  business.  She  replied  and 
thereafter  they  corresponded  quite  regularly,  but 
only  about  business.  He  wrote  her,  from  Seattle, 
that  he  would  be  home  before  Thanksgiving.  She 
was  not  by  nature  a  vengeful  or  contentious  per- 
son. By  preference  her  ways  were  the  ways  of 
peace.  She  had,  all  around,  a  certain  loyalty  to 

218 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


the  partnership,  and  with  something  like  a  sense 
of  duty  to  it,  she  acted.  That  is,  she  sent  May 
back  to  Chicago,  liberally  provided  with  money, 
to  spend  Thanksgiving  and  the  holidays.  She  was 
willing  to  receive  her  partner  without  prejudice. 

Pound  returned  the  day  before  Thanksgiving, 
and  they  met  calmly,  with  only  a  little  embarrass- 
ment. She  didn't  like  his  looks.  They  suggested 
that  he  hadn't  been  treating  himself  any  too  well 
during  this  two  months'  absence.  She  seemed  to 
feel  at  once  that  he  had  known  May  would  be 
gone.  He  did  not  ask  after  her;  neither  of  them, 
in  fact,  mentioned  her.  Also,  she  seemed  to  feel 
at  once  that  they  were  not  going  back  to  the  old 
footing.  Profound  disappointment  still  bit  him. 
She  saw  it  in  his  restless  eyes.  She  had  no  doubt 
that  he  would  accept  eagerly  the  invitation  to  the 
Mullenses'  Thanksgiving  dinner;  was  quite  pre- 
pared for  the  anticipatory  lighting-up  with  which, 
indeed,  he  heard  of  it. 

The  dinner  was  the  usual  expensive,  prodigal 
affair.  Yet  an  unwonted  air  of  genteel  self-con- 
sciousness pervaded  it.  Even  Mr.  Mullens  was 
reduced  to  innocent  conversation  upon  the  respec- 

219 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


tive  merits  of  the  tables  at  various  New  York 
hotels.  He  carefully  said  "blamed"  instead  of 
the  more  vigorous  word  which  came  naturally  to 
his  candid  lips.  Warned  by  his  wife's  meaning 
eye,  he  stopped  at  the  second  bottle  of  champagne 
for  the  entire  party,  whereas  his  own  normal 
capacity  was  about  two  bottles.  Such  was  the 
refining  influence  which  was  imposed  by  the  pres- 
ence of  Mrs.  Eileen  Morrison. 

For  more  than  a  month  Mrs.  Morrison  had 
been  a  guest  of  Mrs.  Mullens,  to  whom  she  was 
distantly  related.  At  first  sight  Emma,  reading 
her  with  sure  feminine  intuition,  felt  toward  Mrs. 
Morrison  the  honest  antipathy  of  a  dog  for  a 
cat — a  pretty,  willowy,  pouting,  cuddly  creature, 
whose  whole  capital  lay  in  her  complexion,  her 
coppery  hair,  her  teeth  and  dimples;  a  creature 
good  for  nothing  but  to  wheedle  and  whimper 
and  waste,  with  just  brains  enough  to  trick  out 
her  pretty  person.  That  she  was  so  eminently 
proper  and  conventional  was,  in  Emma's  con- 
temptuous view,  merely  a  part  of  her  poor  little 
stock  in  trade ;  it  went  along  with  her  hair  and  her 
carefully-unnatural  manner  of  showing  all  her 

220 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


small  white  teeth  when  she  smiled.  Emma  had 
no  doubt  that  in  the  legal  proceedings  which  had 
separated  her  from  the  unknown  Morrison  she 
had  appeared  impeccable  and  received  the  sym- 
pathy of  a  masculine  court. 

Even  before  that  introductory  evening  was 
over,  Pound  was  paying  noticeable  attention  to 
Mrs.  Morrison,  and  within  a  month  his  attentions 
became  noticeable  to  the  point  of  recklessness. 
Emma  watched  their  progress  unprotesting,  but 
with  a  dark  little  smile. 

She  was  philosopher  enough  to  be  acquainted 
with  the  unromantic  fact  that,  very  often,  if  a 
man  falls  in  love  and  the  girl  refuses  him,  he 
promptly  marries  some  other  girl— because  a 
hunger  has  been  evoked  in  him  and  Nature  her- 
self prompts  him  to  satisfy  it.  She  knew  that  a 
man  whose  romantic  sentiments  have  been  power- 
fully aroused,  but  left  without  an  object  upon 
which  to  discharge  themselves,  is  as  dangerous  as 
the  traditional  "unloaded"  gun  that  explodes  the 
moment  any  one  gets  in  front  of  it.  She  knew, 
also,  that  Pound  had  fallen  helplessly  and  hope- 
lessly in  love  with  May.  That  unappeased  hun- 

221 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


ger  lay  in  his  heart,  and  now  came  an  object  suf- 
ficiently comely  to  attract  it.  She  really  gave 
Eileen  no  credit  at  all;  but  regarded  her  with 
unmixed  contempt. 

Not  that  there  was  a  thing  in  the  conduct  of 
Mrs.  Morrison  at  which  even  a  jealous  spouse 
could  properly  have  taken  umbrage.  She  merely 
smiled  as  Pound  persisted  in  talking  to  her — 
taking  care  to  turn  her  shining  head  now  and 
then  so  as  to  bring  Mrs.  Pound  into  the  conversa- 
tion— and  graciously  bent  her  shoulders  when 
Pound  took  the  wrap  from  an  attendant  to  invest 
her  with  it.  Certainly  the  poor  young  woman 
couldn't  prevent  anybody  who  liked  from  looking 
over  her  shelfful  of  wares. 

But  Emma  was  not  at  all  looking  for  pretexts. 
She  had  a  habit  of  going  squarely  to  the  main 
point. 

It  was  in  the  latter  part  of  January  that  Pound 
came  to  her  with  his  project  of  a  party.  He  tried 
to  make  it  appear  incidental — merely  an  amusing, 
inconsequential  idea  that  had  just  occurred  to  him, 
in  which  her  interest  would  equal  his  own.  It 
would  be  a  small,  yet  rather  notable  party.  He 

222 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


proposed  to  hire  the  banquet  room  in  the  hotel. 
After  dinner  there  would  be  a  vaudeville  perform- 
ance, with  the  best  professional  talent  procurable. 

Emma  listened  without  comment,  then  asked 
calmly:  "Who  you  going  to  invite,  Johnny?" 

"Oh,  just  a  dozen  or  so — anybody  you  like," 
he  replied  magnanimously.  "Doc  Lester  and  his 
wife,  of  course."  He  named  some  others.  "And 
the  Mullenses." 

"And  Eileen?"  Emma  inquired  with  ominous 
quiet. 

"Oh,  of  course — Mrs.  Morrison.  We  couldn't 
ask  the  Mullenses  without  asking  her,"  he  said, 
as  though,  otherwise,  he  would  have  left  her  out. 

"Eileen  don't  come  to  any  party  of  mine, 
Johnny.  I  don't  stand  for  her,"  said  Emma  very 
coolly,  looking  him  steadily  in  the  eye.  So,  there 
it  was,  dragged  right  out  of  its  lair  and  laid 
stark  between  them.  Such  was  Emma's  method. 

Naturally,  Pound  lost  his  temper.  He  was 
exasperated,  for  one  thing,  because  she  wouldn't 
play  the  game  according  to  rules.  She  had  no 
excuse  in  the  world  for  objecting  to  Eileen,  ex- 
cept the  one  grand  excuse  that  he  was  falling  in 

223; 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


love  with  her — which  he  knew,  and  she  knew,  and 
he  knew  that  she  knew.  He  bluffed  and  jeered. 
Wasn't  Mrs.  Morrison  perfectly  respectable? 
Wasn't  her  conduct  always  above  reproach? 
Wasn't  she  a  perfect  lady?  Was  Emma  getting 
jealous,  then  ?  But  he  might  as  well  have  thrown 
feathers  at  a  rock. 

Presently  Emma  spoke  calmly:  "Why  do  I 
object  to  her?  Well,  she  is  a  perfect  fool,  for  one 
thing.  She  hasn't  any  more  brains  than  a  cat. 
She  couldn't  fool  any  bright  woman  for  a  minute. 
She's  stringing  you  along  because  she  wants  your 
money." 

That,  spoken  with  perfect  calmness,  was  clearly 
intolerable.  Pound  sprang  up.  "I'll  invite  her 
all  the  same,"  he  exclaimed.  "You  can  come  to 
the  party  or  stay  at  home,  just  as  you  please." 

He  was  going  to  fling  out  of  the  room,  but  she 
stopped  him.  "Wait  just  a  minute,"  she  said,  low. 
She  had  not  left  her  chair,  and  her  hands  rested 
quietly  in  her  lap.  But  she  looked  steadily  up  at 
him  and  the  look  held  him.  Even  in  his  wrath 
he  perceived  that  she  was  angry  and  no  more 
afraid  of  him  than  a  ferret  is  of  a  rat. 

224 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


"We  won't  talk  about  husband  and  wife,"  she 
said  after  a  moment,  speaking  rather  slowly.  "We 
won't  mention  that  at  all.  But  I'm  the  best  friend 
you  ever  had,  Johnny.  I've  done  more  for  you 
than  anybody  else  ever  did  or  will  do.  I  can  help 
you  now  if  you'll  let  me.  I  know  Eileen  like  a 
book.  She's  a  lazy  cat  that  can't  do  anything  but 
eat  and  purr  and  yowl.  It  makes  me  sick  to  see 
such  a  cheap  thing  take  you  in.  You're  too  good 
a  man,  Johnny.  That's  for  mushheads  and 
pikers.  She  wants  your  money.  Cut  her  out, 
Johnny.  Just  think  that  over  as  though  some  man 
that  had  stood  by  you  through  thick  and  thin  had 
said  it." 

"Is  that  all?"  Pound  inquired  mockingly. 

"That's  all,  Johnny,"  she  replied  quietly. 

He  walked  out.  The  next  day  he  took  a  suite 
at  the  hotel,  and  the  swell  apartment  knew  him 
no  more.  Emma  learned  that  he  gave  his  party 
as  he  had  planned.  The  day  of  the  party  she  sent 
for  May  to  come  back  and  live  with  her,  and  ten 
days  later  she  sent  her  husband  a  note  which  ran : 

Dear  Johnny :  I've  been  looking  over 
a  piece  of  suburban  real  estate.    I  think 
225 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


it's  a  good  investment  and  would  like  to 
buy  it.    The  price  is  fifty  thousand. 
Yours,  EMMA. 

Promptly,  with  much  relief  and  with  some  con- 
tempt, he  mailed  her  a  check  for  the  amount. 
He  might  have  known,  he  reflected,  that  it  would 
be  simply  a  question  of  buying  her  off.  Soon 
afterward  he  began  taking  frequent  trips  out  of 
town — to  the  Coast,  to  Chicago,  Toronto,  New 
York.  Emma  and  May,  meanwhile,  lived  on 
quietly  at  the  swell  flat,  where  Tommy  Watrous 
was  a  constant  caller.  Hamilton,  Pound's  old 
pal,  also  took  to  calling  there  quite  regularly  when 
he  was  in  town.  He  knew  a  great  many  odd  ad- 
ventures and  droll  stories  that  made  them  laugh. 

Before  the  end  of  February  Tommy  brought 
a  piece  of  news  which  he  imparted  to  Emma  as 
they  sat  side  by  side  on  the  davenport  in  the 
nobby  parlor.  He  spoke  low,  for  May  was  in  the 
next  room. 

"He's  been  in  South  Dakota — at  Sioux  Falls," 
said  Tommy.  "He's  taken  lodgings  there  for  six 
months." 

Six  months  was  the  period  of  residence  re- 
226 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


quired  by  the  Dakota  laws  before  one  could  pro- 
cure a  divorce.  Emma  heard  the  news  as  one 
hears  an  expected  thing.  She  was  not,  at  the  mo- 
ment, in  her  usual  vigorous  health.  She  had 
caught  cold  and  was  ravaged  by  the  grippe.  So 
the  only  action  she  took  in  response  to  the  news 
was  to  pack  her  trunk.  Two  days  later  she  and 
May  left  for  California.  In  fact,  the  woman's 
will  was  languid.  She  was  not  a  very  sentimental 
creature,  yet  the  separation  from  her  husband 
affected  her  quite  deeply.  They  had  been  good 
partners ;  together  had  built  up  a  big  concern  out 
of  nothing.  That  he  had  gone  back  on  her,  that 
the  silly  Eileen  was  stepping  into  her  place,  did, 
after  all,  rather  take  the  fighting  edge  from  her 
mind.  She  knew  well  enough  that  she  could  ex- 
tract a  snug  little  fortune  from  Pound  as  the  price 
of  a  divorce.  The  idea  of  travel  had  always 
enticed  her,  even  when  she  saw  no  possible  means 
of  satisfying  it.  After  all,  why  not  just  fade  out 
of  the  situation  with  a  neat  competence— take  her 
ease  and  travel?  As  she  boarded  the  train  for 
California  it  seemed  merely  the  turn  of  a  hair 
whether  she  would  ever  come  back. 

227 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


After  a  month  in  California  she  and  May  did, 
indeed,  go  to  Mexico.  Travel  really  delighted 
her.  She  enjoyed  this  novelty  of  staying  at  the 
best  hotels,  riding  about  in  a  carriage,  having  por- 
ters and  waiters  to  look  after  her.  With  almost 
no  help  from  books,  she  got  much  information, 
asking  questions  about  everything  that  interested 
her,  observing,  shrewdly  apprehending.  It 
seemed,  indeed,  very  doubtful  whether  Pound 
would  ever  see  her  again — for  he  could  mail  the 
alimony  to  her. 


228 


CHAPTER  X 

BEING  AT  WAR,  POUND  FINDS  AN  ALLY 

FROM  time  to  time,  while  the  sisters  were 
away,  Hamilton  wrote  May  a  long  letter, 
full  of  absurd  stories.     Emma  noticed 
that  May  kept  these  letters,  reading  each  of  them 
over  several  times,  and  that  she  spent  a  long  while 
in  answering  them. 

Emma  herself  heard  regularly  from  Tommy 
Watrous  and  thus,  so  to  speak,  kept  a  finger  on 
the  pulse  of  the  bucketshop.  It  was  an  almost 
monotonous  record  of  success.  But  the  middle  of 
May,  Tommy  wrote  news  of  a  different  sort.  A( 
big  row  had  broken  out. 

There  was  in  St.  Paul  an  eminently-respectable 
commission  merchant  named  Charles  Francis  Lan- 
sing, whom  Pound  had  once  outrageously  gulled. 
Benjamin  F.  Totherow,  a  leader  of  the  bar,  had 
been  Mr.  Lansing's  legal  adviser  upon  that  occa- 
sion, and  had  felt  as  deeply  outraged  as  his  client. 

229 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Partly  inspired  by  these  two,  a  rather  formidable 
combination  of  "regular"  commission  men  and 
brokers  had  at  length  been  formed  for  the  pur- 
pose of  driving  the  bucketshop  out  of  the  field. 
This  combination  commanded  much  money  and 
large  influence  among  the  dominant,  respectable, 
conservative  elements  of  the  community.  They 
could  count  upon  help  from  the  banks,  the  news- 
papers, the  politicians,  and,  in  a  general  way,  from 
those  who  were  amenable  to  conservative  powers. 

Upon  receipt  of  this  news  Emma  turned  north- 
ward, traveling  rather  leisurely.  She  would  have 
been  really  sorry  to  see  Pound  worsted,  especially 
by  such  foes — for  she  had  been  long  enough  in  the 
bucketshop  atmosphere  to  despise  the  "regulars." 
But  more  than  that,  she  had  a  large,  contingent 
stake  in  the  bucketshop  herself.  She  and  May 
reached  St.  Paul  the  first  week  in  June.  Arriving 
early,  they  drove  to  a  hotel  for  breakfast.  Thus 
it  happened  that  almost  the  first  person  they  saw 
was  Hamilton. 

Naturally,  Emma  began  talking  to  him  at  once 
about  the  fight  upon  Pound.  It  occurred  to  her 
that  the  lank,  round-shouldered,  bushily-mus- 

230 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


tached  man  was  rather  embarrassed;  but  she  at- 
tributed that  to  the  fact  that  May  was  sitting 
silently  by.  Hamilton  told  her,  however,  how  the 
contest  was  going.  The  "regulars"  had  got  two 
of  the  principal  newspapers  to  pitching  into  Pound 
and  bucketshops  in  general  in  a  savage  way;  they 
were  egging  on  the  banks  to  cast  as  much  doubt 
as  possible  upon  Pound's  financial  standing;  they 
were  talking  of  introducing  a  very  drastic  anti- 
bucketshop  bill  at  the  next  session  of  the  Legis- 
lature. 

"How's  Johnny  taking  it?"  Emma  asked  at 
length. 

Hamilton  looked  at  the  floor  and  colored. 
"The  fact  is,  Emma,"  he  said  reluctantly,  "I 
haven't  seen  him  for  a  week.  I'm  fired." 

Emma  regarded  him  in  blank  astonishment. 
Hamilton  looked  up  at  her,  then  glanced  uneasily 
at  May,  yet  faced  it  squarely. 

"You  know  you  can't  always  depend  on  me," 
he  said  very  soberly.  She  knew,  indeed,  the  old 
weakness  which  occasionally  overcame  him,  but 
for  which  he  might  have  been  a  partner  in  the 
bucketshop.  Hamilton  folded  his  bony  hands  and 

231 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


looked  back  at  the  floor.  He  would  have  given 
a  good  deal  if  May  had  been  out  of  the  room; 
but  he  took  his  medicine.  "I  got  soused  a  couple 
of  times  this  spring.  Of  course,  Johnny's  jumped 
on  me  for  that  before.  But  he's  been  pretty 
savage  lately;  temper  seems  to  be  going  back  on 
him.  So  the  second  time — that  was  last  week — 
he  fired  me." 

Emma  stared  at  him  almost  incredulously.  It 
would  be  difficult  to  say  whether  Pound's  action 
shocked  her  most  because  it  was  so  ungenerous,  or 
because  it  was  so  grossly  impolitic.  For  Hamilton 
knew  the  bucketshop  from  the  ground  up,  as  no 
other  person  except  Pound  and  herself  knew  it. 
To  the  "regulars"  he  would  be  invaluable.  For 
Pound  to  cast  him  out  at  this  juncture  was  utter 
recklessness.  Without  stopping  to  consider  that 
she  was  already  out  of  the  bucketshop  herself,  she 
said  confidently :  "I'll  see  that  he  takes  you  back, 
Ham." 

Hamilton  had  no  doubt  of  her  good  will.  Per- 
haps he  doubted  her  power.  At  any  rate,  he  only 
looked  up  at  her  in  a  troubled  way,  and  Emma 
understood  there  was  something  behind.  May 

232 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


seemed  to  understand  it  also,  for  in  a  moment 
she  slipped  away  to  the  other  end  of  the  hotel 
parlor.  Emma  bent  forward  eagerly. 

"How  did  it  happen,  Ham?  I  don't  under- 
stand it,"  she  said. 

"Why,  I  met  Johnny  on  the  sidewalk  in  front 
of  the  Savoy,"  he  said,  under  his  breath.  "He 
was  just  coming  out  from  dinner.  I  felt  affection- 
ate toward  him,  you  know,  and  I  guess  I  acted  it. 
I  suppose  I  made  a  scene.  I  sort  of  remember  a 
crowd  gathering.  You  see,  Johnny  wasn't  alone. 
He  had  a  lady  with  him.  Probably  the  lady 
wasn't  looking  for  publicity — might  seem  sort  of 
indelicate  and  improper,  you  know,  to  be  found 
taking  dinner  with  him.  I  suppose  it  made  her 
crazy,  and  Johnny,  too.  Next  morning  he  sent 
me  a  note,  firing  me." 

Then  Emma  understood.  She  could  imagine 
Eileen's  rage  at  being  made  conspicuous  in  the 
vulgar  position  of  taking  dinner  alone  with  the 
gentleman  whom  she  proposed  to  marry  as  soon 
as  he  was  divorced.  This  ruthless  and  impolitic 
sacrifice  of  Hamilton  enlightened  Emma  also— 
painfully— as  to  the  extent  to  which  Pound's  in- 

233 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


fatuation  had  progressed.  There  had  never  been 
an  instant  when  he  would  have  done  so  foolish 
a  thing  to  appease  her. 

It  sent  her  into  a  coil  of  thought,  so  that  she 
scarcely  noticed  Hamilton.  He  got  up,  in  fact, 
hat  in  hand  and  moved  in  an  embarrassed,  un- 
certain way  toward  the  door.  Then  he  hesitated, 
coloring  a  little,  and  looked  over  his  shoulder. 
May  was  at  the  other  end  of  the  long  parlor, 
bending  over  a  potted  plant  in  the  window;  but 
she  glanced  up  in  time  to  catch  his  eye,  then 
quickly  looked  down  again.  Hamilton  fumbled 
unhappily  with  his  hat,  hesitated  and  tugged  at 
his  red  mustache;  finally  shuffled  slowly  toward 
the  door;  but  stopped  half  way  and  looked  back. 
May  was  still  examining  the  plant.  She  did  not 
look  up  this  time,  and  he  stood,  foolishly,  study- 
ing the  crown  of  his  hat.  In  a  moment  she  began 
to  drift  slowly  down  the  side  of  the  room,  paus- 
ing to  look  up  at  the  pictures,  but  never  looking 
toward  him.  In  a  moment  more,  he  stepped  into 
the  corridor  and  there  stood  beside  the  doorway, 
hoping,  uncertain,  in  a  joyous  misery,  fumbling 
with  his  hat  and  again  tugging  at  his  mustache. 

234 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


At  length,  she  slipped  swiftly  through  the  door, 
gliding  in  front  of  him.  "Don't  do  that,  Ham! 
Don't  1"  she  whispered,  her  brow  contracted.  And 
before  he  could  open  his  mouth  she  turned  and 
slipped  into  the  parlor  again — like  the  wheel  and 
dip  of  a  bird  awing. 

Emma  had  not  moved.  She  was  still  intently 
thinking  it  over.  A  full  quarter  of  an  hour 
passed  before  she  made  up  her  mind.  Then  she 
went  straight  to  the  bucketshop.  It  had  been  near- 
ly six  months  since  she  had  entered  that  once-famil- 
iar place,  and  quite  five  months  since  she  had 
seen  her  husband.  She  walked  composedly  to  the 
private  room,  and  found  him  sitting  at  his  desk. 

But  it  was  not  the  old,  simple  desk.  It  was 
a  handsome  affair  of  carved  mahogany,  mounted 
with  silver.  A  cut-glass  vase  on  top  of  the  desk 
held  a  bouquet  of  roses.  The  simple  table  had 
been  replaced  by  a  companion-piece  to  the  desk, 
and  there  were  new  chairs  to  match.  The  table 
stood  on  an  Oriental  rug  which — as  she  judged 
at  one  swift,  comprehending  glance — must  have 
cost  a  couple  of  hundred  dollars.  The  same 
glance  took  in  the  man  at  the  desk.  It  struck 

235 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


her  that  he  had  gained  flesh,  and  the  gain  was 
not  to  his  advantage.  His  face  seemed  fuller  and 
redder.  Certainly  his  hair  was  cut  shorter,  which 
made  the  little  patch  of  gray  at  the  temples  show. 
He  wore  a  freshly-pressed  suit  of  very  light 
brown,  marked  off  into  checks  by  darker  stripes, 
and  fine  silk  socks  and  low  shoes  with  broad,  silk 
laces.  He  was  not  coatless  now,  as  formerly  in 
warm  weather,  but  vestless.  His  expansive  shirt- 
front,  of  fine  linen,  was  covered  with  dainty  little 
plaits.  She  felt  a  sort  of  angry  disgust.  This 
well-stuffed,  betailored  creature  was  not  Johnny 
Pound,  the  winner,  but  just  an  ordinary,  rich 
bounder.  However,  she  had  come  there  to  talk 
business. 

"How  are  you,  Johnny?"  she  said,  in  a  calmly 
friendly  manner,  and  took  the  chair  at  the  end  of 
the  desk  as  unconcernedly  as  though  that  had  been 
her  unbroken  custom.  She  saw  that  he  regarded 
her  with  surprise  and  in  wary  uncertainty,  so  she 
continued  in  a  matter-of-fact  manner: 

"You're  getting  a  divorce,  you  know.  Why 
can't  we  settle  up  quietly  in  a  businesslike  way  and 
have  it  over  with?  I'm  willing."  She  made  it, 

236 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


indeed,  a  simple,  business  proposition,  and  as 
such,  after  a  moment's  hesitation,  Pound  received 
it. 

"Very  well,  I'm  willing,"  he  said  coolly,  and 
waited  for  her  proposal. 

"I've  been  having  a  good  time  traveling  in 
Mexico,"  she  said.  "I  want  to  go  to  Europe. 
I've  always  wanted  to  travel,  and  now  there's  no 
reason  why  I  shouldn't.  All  I  want  is  enough 
money  to  keep  me  comfortably.  I'll  take  a  couple 
of  hundred  thousand  dollars." 

That  was  a  large  sum.  It  was,  in  fact,  twice 
as  large  as  the  sum  he  had  in  mind.  But  this 
fight  with  the  "regulars"  put  him  at  a  disadvan- 
tage. It  was  clearly  within  her  power  to  inter- 
vene in  that  fight  in  a  manner  highly  inconvenient 
to  himself.  More  than  that,  out  of  the  six 
months'  purgatorial  period  which  separated  him 
from  Eileen  he  had  already  gained  four.  He 
would  pay  very  handsomely  if  only  Emma  would 
keep  quiet  and  do  nothing  to  postpone  the  divorce. 

"I'll  tell  you  what  I'll  do,  Emma,"  he  said  after 
a  moment,  in  a  manner  as  businesslike  and  free 
from  unfriendliness  as  her  own.  "I'll  give  you 

237 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


twenty-five  thousand  dollars  down,  and  a  hundred 
and  seventy-five  thousand  when  I  get  the  divorce.'* 

That  might  seem  like  a  reflection,  yet  it  was, 
after  all,  mere  ordinary  business  precaution. 
Nobody  paid  the  full  amount  until  the  goods  were 
delivered.  So  she  said  calmly,  "That  will  be 
satisfactory,  Johnny,"  and  waited  for  him  to  fill 
out  the  check.  She  glanced  over  the  instrument 
with  an  experienced,  businesslike  eye,  folded  it 
neatly  and  dropped  it  in  her  handbag.  So  that 
was  settled. 

"They're  trying  to  put  you  out  of  business," 
she  observed,  taking  up  her  second  subject.  Pres- 
ently they  were  discussing  the  fight. 

Now,  for  the  "regulars"  Pound  had  some  con- 
tempt, but  not  too  much.  He  knew  well  enough 
that  their  combination  was  rather  formidable. 
In  their  behalf  two  influential  newspapers  were 
pitching  into  him,  hammer  and  tongs.  Many 
of  the  banks  were  ready  enough  to  cast  doubt 
upon  his  standing.  He  suspected  that  even  the 
Norse  National,  while  properly  anxious  to  retain 
his  profitable  account,  was  not  really  infatuated 
with  him  in  its  heart.  Its  natural  leanings  would 

238 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


be  rather  toward  the  regular,  conservative,  con- 
ventional crowd.  Except  for  such  service  as  he 
could  buy  in  one  way  and  another,  he  stood  prac- 
tically alone.  It  was  his  brains  and  money  against 
the  field.  But  here  was  an  ally,  this  woman,  with 
her  swift,  clear,  adroit  mind,  her  unshaken  cour- 
age, her  surefooted  judgment.  Presently  they 
were  discussing  the  fight  almost  as  in  the  old  days. 
Before  leaving  she  had  little  trouble  in  showing 
him  that  he  must  take  Hamilton  back.  It  wouldn't 
do  to  throw  him  over  to  the  enemy,  and  he  could 
be  kept  out  of  town  a  good  part  of  the  time. 

Indeed,  when  Emma  left,  Pound  discovered 
that  something  of  a  load  had  been  lifted  from 
his  mind.  He  had  been  quite  confident  before, 
yet  the  feeling  that  reinforcements  were  at  hand 
was  pleasant.  He  had  no  trouble  in  explaining 
to  himself  her  interest  in  the  fight.  In  the  first 
place,  she  now  had  a  stake  of  a  hundred  and 
seventy-five  thousand  dollars  in  the  bucketshop. 
In  the  next  place,  he  knew  that  she  delighted  in 
the  fight  for  its  own  sake.  Its  atmosphere  drew 
her  as  tradition  unwarrantably  says  the  sounds 
of  battle  do  a  warhorse. 

239 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


The  second  reason  was,  perhaps,  the  more  com- 
pelling. As  a  matter  of  fact,  Emma  did  delight 
in  the  fight.  It  gave  her  exercise  for  her  talents. 
Only  three  days  later  she  returned  to  the  bucket- 
shop  with  an  idea  she  wished  to  lay  before  him. 
Thus,  without  any  prearrangement,  she  fell  into 
a  way  of  visiting  his  office  quite  often,  talking  the 
thing  over  with  him,  debating,  devising  and 
scheming.  Within  a  month  all  the  threads  of  the 
affair  were  as  completely  in  her  hands  as  in  his. 

Pound  discovered  an  opportunity  to  get  con- 
trol of  a  moribund  afternoon  newspaper  by  ad- 
vancing some  ninety  thousand  dollars  to  pay  its 
most  pressing  debts.  The  Evening  Common- 
wealth enjoyed,  in  fact,  only  very  limited  circula- 
tion or  influence  at  home.  But  its  statements  in 
the  bucketshop's  behalf  would  count  out  in  the 
country  if  copies  were  judiciously  distributed 
through  the  branch  offices.  Pound  took  over  the 
sheet,  and  Emma  urged  him  to  deliver  a  frontal 
attack  through  it.  Presently,  therefore,  the  Com- 
monwealth published  a  long  and  circumstantial 
account  of  how  Mr.  Charles  Francis  Lansing,  the 
eminent  "regular"  commission  merchant,  had 

240 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


bucketshopped  his  customers'  orders  through 
Pound.  Of  course,  it  gave  Pound's  version  only; 
but  the  detailed  record  of  the  bucketshopped 
trades,  with  dates  and  prices,  looked  quite  con- 
vincing. Indeed,  several  of  Mr.  Lansing's  cus- 
tomers, who  recognized  their  own  trades  in  the 
published  list,  reproached  him  severely.  Alto- 
gether, the  publication  drove  Mr.  Lansing  half 
frantic.  His  attorney,  Benjamin  F.  Totherow, 
brought  suit  against  the  bankrupt  Commonwealth 
for  five  hundred  thousand  dollars'  damages — 
whereat  Pound  and  Emma  enjoyed  a  hearty  laugh. 
Emma  was  especially  happy  in  such  counter- 
strokes  as  these,  which,  while  they  may  not  have 
advanced  Pound's  cause  materially,  brought  vast 
confusion  to  the  enemy.  When  her  fighting 
blood  was  up  she  had  a  kind  of  malicious,  half- 
apish  mischievousness.  She  insisted  that  they 
ought  to  have  a  man  in  the  enemy's  camp.  Surely 
there  was  somebody  sufficiently  respectable  to 
gain  the  "regulars'  "  confidence  and  sufficiently 
venal  to  appreciate  a  substantial  check.  She  and 
Pound  together  presently  worked  out  a  trap  into 
which  the  "regulars"  fell. 

241 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


There  being  no  law  by  which  the  bucketshop 
could  be  suppressed,  the  chief  hope  of  the  "reg- 
ulars" lay  in  undermining  its  credit.  By  skillful 
maneuvering  the  notion  was  at  length  spread 
among  them  that  the  concern's  financial  position 
was  really  dubious.  Pound's  silence,  as  the  two 
newspapers  which  most  vigorously  supported  the 
"regulars"  questioned  his  solvency  with  increas- 
ing boldness,  tended  to  confirm  this  view.  So  did 
the  reports  which  Pound's  stoolpigeon  brought 
them.  They  insisted  that  the  bucketshop,  which 
confessedly  was  holding  the  margin  money  o£ 
thousands  of  customers,  should  submit  to  an  ex- 
amination as  to  its  solvency.  When  the  demand 
had  been  iterated  in  such  a  manner  that  it  could 
not  be  retracted  Pound  abruptly  complied  with  it, 
inviting  a  committee  of  bankers  and  brokers  to 
see  for  themselves  whether  he  was  broke. 

He  had,  of  course,  been  preparing  for  it.  For 
some  time  his  bank  balance  had  been  running 
down  smartly.  He  rather  suspected  that  the 
Norse  National  had  not  been  guarding  that  secret 
as  carefully  as  it  should.  But  the  money  had  by, 
no  means  been  lost.  On  the  contrary,  he  had  been 

242 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


buying  Government  bonds  with  it.  Therefore,  he 
exhibited  to  the  very  respectable  and  much  disap- 
pointed investigating  committee  seven  hundred 
thousand  dollars  in  Government  bonds,  and  state- 
ments from  his  various  banks  showing  that  he  had 
more  than  four  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  cash 
on  deposit. 

The  Evening  Commonwealth  published  on  its 
front  page  a  large  photograph  of  the  imposing 
heap  of  bonds,  together  with  fac-similes  of  the 
bank  statements  and  of  the  report  which  the  com- 
mittee— much  to  its  chagrin — had  been  compelled 
to  sign.  The  exhibition  was  so  unusual  that  it 
was  quite  generally  noticed  in  the  press,  while 
Pound  distributed  broadcast  copies  of  that  issue 
of  the  Commonwealth.  Also,  he  had  big  photo- 
graphs of  the  bonds,  the  bank  statements  and  the 
committee's  report  handsomely  framed  and  hung 
conspicuously  in  every  one  of  his  branch  offices. 
The  result  was  quite  a  boom  for  the  bucketshop. 
In  the  popular  mind  Government  bonds  had  long 
connoted  wealth  in  its  most  solid,  respectable  and 
enduring  form.  The  bucketshop's  great  heap  of 
those  securities  carried  conviction. 

243 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Immediately  following  the  exhibition  Pound 
sold  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  of  the  bonds. 
The  other  five  hundred  thousand  he  kept.  They 
were  nice  things  to  have — perfectly  secure,  yet 
convertible  into  cash  at  a  moment's  notice.  Some 
such  thought  he  expressed  to  Emma  about  a  fort- 
night before  the  exhibition.  A  fat  bundle  of  the 
bonds  had  come  in  by  express  from  New  York, 
and  Pound  was  opening  them  personally.  He 
liked  to  handle  them ;  liked  the  feel  of  the  strong, 
crisp  paper  so  much  like  that  of  a  new  banknote ; 
liked  to  look  at  the  rich  brown  steel  engraving 
which  also  bore  such  a  resemblance  to  money. 
To  his  mind,  also,  these  engraved  sheets  sug- 
gested wealth  in  an  impregnable  form.  While  he 
was  thus  engaged  Emma  chanced  to  step  in.  He 
smiled  a  little,  as  though  he  had  been  caught  play- 
ing with  a  toy,  and  pushed  a  handful  of  the  toys 
across  the  desk  for  her  to  play  with.  Emma  took 
up  the  handful  of  bonds,  examining  them  with 
an  emotion  identical  with  his  own.  They  were 
money  in  its  final  manifestation;  they  were  human 
aspiration  cashed  in  and  reduced  to  a  tangible 
shape. 

244 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


"Nice  things  to  have,"  Pound  commented,  smil- 
ing a  little.  "I'm  going  to  salt  down  about  half  a 
million  of  'em  and  hang  to  'em.  It  will  be  pleas- 
ant to  know  they're  there — in  case  it  should  rain 
some  day." 

To  such  an  open,  friendly,  even  intimate  foot- 
ing had  they  naturally  come  in  the  course  of  the 
summer's  fight  with  the  "regulars."  Yet  their 
footing  was  strictly  with  reference  to  business. 
Emma  had  a  stake  in  the  bucketshop,  and  the  fight 
gave  her  that  opportunity  to  exercise  her  ability 
which  she  naturally  craved.  And  Pound  found 
in  her  a  highly-valuable  ally.  That  was  all- 
There  was  no  sentiment  about  it.  She  simply 
came  to  the  office  like  any  other  person  who  had 
business  with  the  head  of  the  concern. 

The  committee's  report  marked  a  crucial  point 
in  the  fight,  comparable  to  a  battle  which  ends  a 
season's  campaign.  This  report  was  made  the 
sixteenth  of  August.  Exactly  a  week  before  that 
an  awkward  thing  had  happened. 

Eileen  had  been  spending  the  summer— since 
the  first  of  June— with  the  Mullenses  at  their  Lake 
Sorel  place.  Pound  went  out  there  every  Friday 

245 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


afternoon,  returning  Monday — except  that,  occa- 
sionally, even  when  the  fight  with  the  "regulars" 
was  pressing,  he  couldn't  bring  himself  to  go 
away  before  Tuesday.  But  early  in  August  busi- 
ness unexpectedly  called  Mr.  Mullens  back  to 
town.  Mrs.  Mullens  decided  to  come  with  him. 
Eileen  wrote  that  she  would  arrive  on  the  ninth. 
Now,  before  going  away  Eileen  herself  had  occa- 
sionally dropped  in  at  the  office — hence  the  Orien- 
tal rug,  the  daily  bouquet  and  the  silver-mounted 
mahogany.  Pound  had  told  Eileen  that  Emma 
had  gone  away  for  good,  and  had  not  deemed 
it  necessary  to  inform  her  that  Emma  had 
returned.  The  possibility  that  they  might  meet 
made  him  nervous. 

Luck  favored  him  for  a  while.  Then,  the  very 
day  when  he  displayed  his  heap  of  wealth  to  the 
discomfited  committee  Eileen  and  Mrs.  Mullens, 
driving  down  to  get  Pound,  saw  Emma  leaving 
the  office.  The  ladies  did  not  go  in;  but  the 
veteran  Mrs.  Mullens  promptly  took  steps  which 
brought  indubitable  information  that  Emma  had 
been  a  frequent  visitor  at  the  office  during  three 
whole  months. 

246 


BE  SWOBE  SUE  SHOULD  NEVER  SET  FOOT  IS  THE  OFFICE  AGAIN. 

Pag*  24<  • 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Eileen  did  nothing  unladylike.  With  one 
white  hand  she  repulsed  Pound,  while  with  the 
other  she  held  a  lace  handkerchief  to  her  pretty 
blue  eyes  as  she  bowed  her  shining  head  and  wept 
convulsively. 

Infatuation  is  a  peculiar  thing.  Before  this 
weeping  woman  the  man  who  had  faced  many 
grave  perils  with  clear  brain  and  iron  nerves 
simply  went  out  of  his  head.  He  paced  the  room 
in  despair  and  distraction,  stammering  out  expla- 
nations and  protestations.  He  clenched  the  nails 
into  the  palms  of  his  hands,  beat  his  fists  together, 
gnawed  his  lip  until  the  blood  came.  At  mo- 
ments he  actually  wept  himself.  He  lied  wildly; 
declared  Emma  had  lost  the  fortune  which  he  had 
given  her  and  was  trying  to  badger  him  into  giv- 
ing her  more ;  swore  she  should  never  set  foot  in 
the  office  again. 

Still  Eileen  wept.  With  a  sweet  little  sob  be- 
hind the  lace  handkerchief,  while  her  pretty  shoul- 
ders shook,  she  mentioned  brokenly  the  unfath- 
omable faith  which  she  had  reposed  in  him.  She 
had  really,  it  seemed,  returned  with  the  Mullenses 
in  order  to  buy  wedding  garments.  She  had 

247 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


thought  their  marriage  was  only  three  weeks  ofi. 

She  had  looked  forward — and  now 

Distracted,  clean  out  of  his  head,  Pound 
plunged  into  the  room  which  Mullens  called  his 
study  because  he  so  often  drank  highballs  there. 
Tearing  a  sheet  of  letter  paper  in  two  and  throw- 
ing away  the  half  which  bore  the  Mullens  mono- 
gram in  gold,  Pound  wrote  a  note  and  super- 
scribed an  envelope  to  cover  it.  Returning,  he 
finally  coaxed  Eileen  to  read  the  note.  It' ran: 

Mrs.  Pound:  You  will  not  enter  my 
office  again  on  any  pretext.  This  is 
positive.  I  will  instruct  the  office  force 
accordingly.  JOHN  POUND. 

When  Pound  left  an  hour  later  Eileen  was 
smiling  a  little,  like  an  injured  but  forgiving  angel. 
The  note  which  Pound  had  written  and  the  en- 
velope directed  in  his  own  hand  were  under  the 
sofa  pillow. 

Thus  the  hour  in  which  Pound  triumphed  so 
signally  over  his  enemies  nearly  coincided  with 
the  hour  in  which  Emma  received  this  peculiar 
testimonial  of  his  gratitude.  She  had  seen  Eileen 
and  Mrs.  Mullens  drive  up  to  the  office  the  day 
before.  She  understood  the  history  of  the  note, 

248 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


even  recognizing  the  Mullens  stationery.  In 
effect,  if  not  in  form,  she  knew  Eileen  had  dic- 
tated it.  She  was  not  a  weak  vessel,  but  Pound's 
infatuation  and  baseness  really  made  her  sick. 
That  valiant  organ,  her  heart,  turned  lumpish 
and  ached.  Like  a  mighty  blow  to  a  strong 
fighter,  it  so  hurt  her  that  it  made  her  limp, 
actually  took  the  fight  out  of  her.  She  sat  brood- 
ing, and  for  almost  the  first  time  in  her  life  ex- 
perienced a  feeling  of  helplessness.  Her  con- 
tempt for  Pound  was  so  complete  that  to  combat 
him  seemed  mean,  like  striking  a  cripple. 

In  the  afternoon  she  went  downtown  to  do 
some  shopping.  She  had  been  thinking  and  think- 
ing in  a  circle  from  which  only  one  outlet  ap- 
peared. She  didn't  want  to  fight  Pound.  He 
wasn't  worth  it.  She  simply  wanted  to  get  away 
—to  go  traveling.  That  thought  appealed  to  her 
more  and  more  strongly.  It  seemed  intolerable 
to  sit  around  there,  as  in  a  painful  dungeon,  even 
for  three  weeks.  She  wanted  to  get  away  at 
once.  She  could  hardly  wait  to  feel  the  pull  of 
the  wheels  beneath  her.  She  revolved  this  thought 

249 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


with  higher  and  higher  desire.  Then  she  remem- 
bered that  Hamilton  was  in  town. 

Why  not  ?  Why  not  let  Pound  deposit  the  hun- 
dred and  seventy-five  thousand  dollars  to  Ham- 
ilton's order,  to  be  paid  over  to  her  when  his 
decree  of  divorce  was  signed  early  in  September? 
Then  she  and  May  could  pack  that  evening.  The 
very  next  day  they  would  leave  for  Chicago,  New 
York,  Europe,  the  world ! 

It  was  characteristic  of  her  to  go  straight  to 
the  object  when  she  had  made  up  her  mind.  Ab- 
sorbed in  this  notion  of  getting  away,  therefore, 
she  turned  about  and  walked  directly  to  Pound's 
office  without  a  collateral  thought. 

She  entered  by  the  side  door  from  the  corridor. 
With  a  merely  mechanical  glance  over  the  main 
room  she  saw  Hamilton  sitting  behind  the  coun- 
ter. The  lank  man  saw  her,  too;  sprang  up  and 
hastened  to  the  little  gate  by  which  one  entered 
the  space  behind  the  counter.  It  occurred  to  her 
in  a  vague,  mechanical  sort  of  way  that  he  meant 
to  intercept  her;  but  the  impression  touched 

merely  the  surface  of  her  mind.    Absorbed  in  her 

250 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


idea  she  walked  briskly  to  the  private  room  and 
entered. 

Pound  was  not  there.  The  chair  before  the 
silver-mounted  desk  was  empty.  But  the  chair  at 
the  end  of  the  desk  was  occupied — by  Eileen,  in 
a  picture  hat  and  a  delicate  summer  dress  of 
blue  and  white  silk  with  much  lace  on  it.  Emma 
herself  was  very  plainly  dressed  in  a  brown  linen 
skirt,  shirtwaist,  and  sailor  hat  that  cost  four 
dollars.  She  had  been  quite  economical  in  dress 
that  summer,  as  her  finances  were  not  settled.  So 
the  two  women  confronted  each  other. 

It  was  quite  natural  for  Emma  to  despise  Eileen 
on  general  grounds,  as  a  useless,  spendthrift 
creature,  depending  on  dimples,  hair  and  a  pow- 
der rag  to  take  her  through  the  world.  It  was  as 
natural  for  Eileen  to  despise  Emma  on  grounds 
equally  general,  as  a  vulgar,  dowdy,  mannish  sort 
of  person  without  any  style.  And  each  of  them 
had  plenty  of  special  reasons  for  hatred. 

Eileen,  moreover,  felt  exceedingly  sure  of  her 
position  just  then.  She  derived  strength,  after 
the  manner  of  her  kind,  from  the  consciousness  of 

251 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


being  stunningly  gowned.  Emma  was  dressed 
like  a  workman's  wife.  That  superficial  fact  mis- 
led Eileen's  superficial  mind.  In  Emma  she  saw 
merely  an  outcast  person. 

She  arose  quickly,  her  silken  skirts  murmuring 
and  stiffened  with  supercilious  indignation. 

"What  are  you  doing  here?"  she  demanded 
as  she  would  have  spoken  to  a  kitchenmaid  whom 
she  found  loitering  in  the  parlor. 

"I  came  to  see  Mr.  Pound,"  said  Emma  very 
quietly,  almost  humbly.  Her  dark  eyes,  veiled 
by  long  lashes,  were  fixed  upon  Eileen's  face.  In 
fact,  they  had  focused  upon  that  pretty  object  the 
moment  she  entered  the  room. 

"He  isn't  here,"  Eileen  retorted  angrily. 
"Hasn't  he  told  you  that  he  doesn't  wish  to  see 
you?"  Emma's  humility,  instead  of  mollifying 
Eileen,  evidently  increased  her  temper. 

"I'll  wait  for  him,"  said  Emma  with  a  kind 
of  dogged  humility,  and  took  a  hesitating  step 
forward. 

"I  tell  you  he  doesn't  wish  to  see  you.     Go 

away,"  said  Eileen  imperiously,  drawing  herself 

252 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


up  and  blocking  Emma's  path  to  the  vacant  chair 
in  front  of  the  desk. 

Whereat  a  kind  of  malicious,  or  even  devilish, 
lightning  played  in  Emma's  heart,  and  she  slipped 
her  handbag  from  the  right  hand  to  the  left.  For 
many  years  her  physical  experience  had  been  of  a 
perfectly  seemly,  peaceable  sort.  Yet  she  hadn't 
been  brought  up  on  Desplaines  Street  for  nothing. 

"I'll  wait  for  him,"  she  repeated  in  her  dogged 
humility,  and  bowed  her  head  a  little  and  stepped 
forward  so  that  her  skirt  brushed  Eileen's. 

Quite  in  a  rage  at  this  impudence  Eileen 
stamped  her  shapely  foot,  put  out  her  dimpled 
hand  and  gave  Emma's  shoulder  a  smart  little 
push,  exclaiming:  "Go  away,  I  say!" 

Instantly,  like  the  turning  on  of  an  electric 
light,  she  saw  a  wicked  smile  flash  upon  Emma's 
face.  That  was  all  she  really  did  see  until  she 
was  wildly  clutching  at  the  desk  to  keep  herself 
from  falling,  then  half  sinking,  half  rolling  into 
Pound's  vacant  chair,  her  picture  hat  over  one 
ear,  while  a  spot  on  her  left  cheek  stung  and 

burned. 

253 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Emma  stood  looking  down  at  her  with  the 
wicked  smile.  She  had  owed  Eileen  a  great  deal, 
and  she  had  endeavored  to  pay  it  all  in  that  one 
punch.  She  knew  she  was  badly  out  of  training; 
yet  she  felt  an  immense,  a  fairly  blissful,  satisfac- 
tion. 

To  this  tableau  Pound  entered  rapidly.  Strid- 
ing back  into  the  office  to  rejoin  Eileen  he  had 
seen  Hamilton  standing  in  the  middle  of  the  floor, 
staring  aghast  at  the  doorway  to  the  private 
room.  Also,  he  had  seen  three  or  four  clerks 
behind  the  counter  craning  their  necks  to  peer  in 
the  same  direction.  This  scene  of  rapt  attention 
had  instantly  dissolved.  Hamilton  had  suddenly 
straightened  up,  thrown  back  his  head  and  opened 
his  mouth  as  though  he  were  going  to  shout  with 
laughter,  but  uttering  no  sound;  then  he  had 
doubled  over  and  slapped  his  lank  leg  gleefully. 
Pound  was  vaguely  aware  of  a  somewhat  similar 
movement  on  the  part  of  the  peering  clerks.  His 
mind  misgave.  He  rushed  to  his  room. 

Eileen  was  dazed.  A  trustful  infant  that  had 
touched  a  button  and  set  off  a  broadside  of  artil- 

254 


lery  could  not  have  been  more  paralyzed.  Her 
big,  blue  eyes,  staring  with  amazement  and  terror, 
saw  Pound's  burly  figure  appear  in  the  doorway. 
Much  like  the  infant,  she  stretched  her  arms 
toward  him  and  wailed:  "Johnny,  she  struck  me  I" 

It  was  not  Eileen  alone  that  occupied  Pound's 
mind.  The  mirthful  Hamilton  and  grinning 
clerks  occupied  it,  also.  Fury  possessed  him.  He 
laid  a  big  hand  on  Emma's  shoulder,  drew  her 
violently  toward  him  and  hurled  her  from  the 
room.  Her  right  shoulder  struck  sharply  against 
the  door  jamb.  She  went  staggering,  almost  fall- 
ing, into  the  main  office,  Pound  following  her  in 
speechless  rage,  his  face  contorted. 

Hamilton  really  thought  the  man  would  kill 
her,  and  sprang  forward,  stretching  out  an  ex- 
postulary  palm.  "Oh,  I  say,  Johnny  I  See  here, 
now!"  he  protested. 

So  Pound  turned  to  Hamilton  ferociously  and 
flung  himself  upon  him  with  the  rush  of  a  mad 
bull.  Hamilton  was  far  from  a  physical  match 
for  him  at  any  time.  Now,  there  was  hardly  a 
contest.  Pound  struck  him  savagely,  caught  him 

255 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


as  he  reeled,  and  flung  him  to  the  floor  like  a 
sack  of  grain.  Standing  over  him  he  gasped: 
"Dog!  Sot!  Hog!"  He  showered  epithets  dis- 
jointedly — in  thick  accents,  as  though  each  were 
thrown  from  a  gun — upon  both  Hamilton  and 
Emma.  He  ran  to  the  door,  flung  it  wide,  ran 
back,  pushing  them  along  with  rough  thrusts  of 
his  hands,  driving  them  out,  gasping  insults. 
When  they  were  across  the  threshold  he  slammed 
the  door  shut  behind  them. 

Eileen  was  still  somewhat  dazed,  yet  she  had 
hastily  rearranged  her  hat  and  hair  and  put  a 
handkerchief  over  the  bruised  spot  on  her  cheek. 
Bending  forward  she  stared  out  at  the  conflict 
with  wide  eyes.  She  was  thinking:  "What  a 
mighty  man  he  is,  and  I  control  him!" 

Emma  knew  they  were  out  in  the  corridor; 
that  her  right  shoulder  ached.  She  was  going 
to  tell  Hamilton  that  his  face  was  bloody,  but 
someway  the  impulse  could  not  communicate  itself 
to  her  tongue.  She  was  walking  out  blindly  upon 
the  flagging  when  Hamilton  drew  her  back  to 

the  archway.     He  got  out  a  handkerchief  and 

256 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


wiped  the  blood  from  his  face,  she  watching  him 
blankly,  vaguely  wondering  what  he  wanted. 

"Wait  here,  Emma,"  he  said  in  a  moment,  "un- 
til I  can  get  a  cab  for  you." 

She  waited  obediently  in  the  archway,  looking 
dully  out  at  the  passing  people,  without  under- 
standing why  she  was  there.  Beside  the  cab, 
when  it  drew  up,  she  paused  a  moment,  trying 
to  drag  up  something  that  stirred  dully  in  her 
mind ;  then  motioned  Hamilton  to  enter  the  vehi- 
cle with  her.  As  they  drove  along  he  put  the 
handkerchief  to  his  bleeding  cheek.  She  was 
going  to  offer  her  handkerchief,  but  again  the 
impulse  could  not  reach  her  tongue.  They  drove 
to  the  Cleopatra,  and  he  went  to  bathe  his  bruised 
face. 

When  he  came  back  and  sat  down  Emma  be- 
gan speaking  abruptly.  "I  didn't  go  there  to 
make  any  trouble,  Ham,"  she  said  almost  plain- 
tively. "I  just  wanted  to  settle  up  with  him  and 
go  away.  I  didn't  go  to  make  trouble.  I  meant 
to  leave  him  alone— not  bother  any  more."  Al- 
most mechanically  she  put  her  hand  up  to  her 

257. 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


aching  right  shoulder.  "He  oughtn't  to  have 
done  that  to  me,  Ham,"  she  went  on,  with  that 
odd,  almost  plaintive  note  in  her  voice.  "Johnny 
Pound,  Ham — my  old  partner — he  oughtn't  to 
have  struck  me." 

Hamilton  regarded  her  almost  with  awe,  for 
in  her  dark  eyes  tears  actually  glistened. 

She  winked  the  drops  out  of  her  eyes  and  gave 
her  head  a  slight  shake.  "I  didn't  mean  to  fight 
him,"  she  went  on;  "I  meant  just  to  go  away. 
I've  always  wanted  to  travel.  But  now,  Ham, 
I'm  going  to  break  him.  I'll  throw  him  out  of 
there  without  a  dollar.  I'll  strip  him  to  the 
bone."  She  spoke  without  vengeful  exultation, 
as  though  it  were  a  role  which  Fate  had  laid  upon 
her. 


258 


CHAPTER  XI 

AT  THE  FLOOD  OF  FORTUNE 

THE  decree  of  divorce  which  separated  John 
and  Emma  Pound  was  signed  September 
ninth.  On  the  twelfth  Pound  received  by 

messenger  the  following  note : 

^ 

Dear  Sir:  Please  send  me  my  check 
for  $175,000  by  the  fourteenth.  May 
and  I  are  all  packed  up.  We  will  leave 
for  Chicago  the  fifteenth.  From  Chi- 
cago we  go  on  to  New  York,  and  sail 
for  Europe  the  twenty-first.  Shall  ex- 
pect the  check  by  the  fourteenth  without 
fail. 

Yours  truly,        EMMA  POUND. 

Pound  threw  the  note  in  the  waste-basket.  He 
was  still  in  a  mighty  rage  against  her.  One  thing 
in  particular  he  could  not  forgive — that  is,  that 
Hamilton  and  half  a  dozen  of  his  clerks  had 
seen  her  strike  the  lady  whom  he  was  about  to 
marry,  and  had  laughed  over  it.  That  laughter 
rankled  deep  in  his  heart.  He  couldn't  very  well 

discharge  the  whole  office  force,  but  he  could 

259 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


teach  Emma  a  lesson.  He  had  already  given 
her  fifty  thousand  dollars  to  buy  real  estate  with, 
and  twenty-five  thousand  in  cash.  She  had  all 
that  was  due  her  or  that  she  was  going  to  get,  he 
told  himself  vengefully. 

About  noon  of  the  fifteenth  he  received  another 
note,  also  by  messenger.  It  read : 

Dear  Sir:  Mrs.  Emma  Pound,  lately 
your  wife,  has  placed  in  my  hands 
for  collection  her  claim  against  you  for 
$175,000.  Your  certified  check  for 
that  amount,  if  received  within  twenty- 
four  hours,  will  be  accepted  in  full 
settlement.  Otherwise  my  client  will 
immediately  take  certain  steps  for  the 
enforcement  of  this  and  other  claims. 
If  you  wish  a  personal  interview  you 
can  arrange  by  telephone  to  meet  me  in 
my  office  almost  any  time  during  the 
usual  business  hours. 

This  note  was  signed  by  Benjamin  F.  Tothe- 
row.  That  eminent  attorney  hated  Pound  cor- 
dially. He  was  chief  legal  adviser  of  the 
combination  of  "regular"  brokers  which  had  been 
trying  its  best  to  put  Pound's  bucketshop  out  of 
business.  The  note,  therefore,  gave  Pound  pause. 
He  hadn't  thought  of  Emma's  going  to  Tothe- 
row.  He  could  readily  see  that  an  offensive  and 

260 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


defensive  alliance  between  herself  and  the  attor- 
ney would  be  quite  perilous  to  him.  With  a 
disagreeable  feeling  that  his  flank  had  been  turned 
he  arranged  for  an  interview  with  Totherow. 

He  and  the  lawyer  had  met  before — especially 
upon  the  notable  occasion  when  Pound's  deal  with 
Mr.  Lansing  was  wound  up  so  signally  to  the 
disadvantage  of  the  latter.  But  on  that  occasion 
Pound  had  held  the  trumps.  This  time  Mr. 
Totherow  received  him  with  a  supercilious  bland- 
ness  which  was  hard  to  bear.  Pound  proposed 
to  compromise,  and  mentioned  fifty  thousand  dol- 
lars as  the  utmost  sum  which  -he  would  pay 
Emma.  The  skinny  lawyer  actually  smiled  with 
anticipatory  joy. 

His  client,  he  said,  had  instructed  him  not, 
under  any  circumstances,  to  accept  a  single  penny 
less  than  the  full  amount  of  the  claim.  He  added 
candidly  that,  as  Mr.  Pound  doubtless  surmised, 
he  personally  would  be  tickled  to  death  if  Mr. 
Pound  should  refuse  to  pay.  In  that  case  he 
could  proceed  with  the  legal  steps  which  his  client 
instructed  him  to  take. 

Pound  knew  perfectly  well  that  nothing  would 
261 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


please  Mr.  Totherow  better  than  an  opportunity 
to  pitch  into  him  under  Emma's  capable  direction. 
"What  sort  of  steps?"  he  demanded  angrily. 

The  first  step,  said  Mr.  Totherow  with  an  ex- 
asperating smile,  would  be  a  suit  to  set  aside  the 
recent  decree  of  divorce.  His  client  would  prove, 
for  one  thing,  that  the  divorce  was  procured  by 
collusion.  What  other  steps  his  client  would  take 
he  did  not  feel  bound  to  disclose. 

In  fact,  in  inducing  Pound  to  settle  Mr.  Tothe- 
row did  not  go  an  inch  beyond  the  strict  letter  of 
his  instructions.  He  had  no  doubt  that  if  Emma 
would  cooperate  with  the  "regulars"  the  path  of 
the  bucketshop  man  would  be  made  very  stony. 
This  constituted  the  dreadful  weakness  of  Pound's 
position.  And  with  a  suit  in  the  courts  attacking 
the  validity  of  his  divorce — spun  out  interminably 
by  postponements,  appeals,  rehearing  and  such 
legal  devices — his  marriage  with  Eileen  might  be 
put  off  a  year.  Finally,  therefore,  he  left  with 
Mr.  Totherow  a  check  for  a  hundred  and  seventy- 
five  thousand  dollars — together  with  a  collection 
of  hearty  but  silent  curses  which  the  attorney,  con- 
sidering how  much  baffled  wrath  they  expressed, 

262 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


would  really  have  been  delighted  to  hear.  Pound 
hoped  fervently  that  Totherow  would  charge 
Emma  an  extortionate  fee — not  knowing  that! 
Emma  had,  to  begin  with,  thriftily  made  an  agree- 
ment covering  that  point. 

He  learned  that  Emma  and  May  left  St.  Paul 
the  fifteenth.  Then  good-natured,  loquacious 
Mrs.  Lester  mentioned  to  him  that  she  had  re- 
ceived a  line  from  Emma,  written  at  New  York 
•  the  day  before  the  sisters  sailed.  Afterwards,  at 
intervals,  Emma  wrote  Mrs.  Lester  from  various 
places  in  Europe — sometimes  only  a  picture  post- 
card, sometimes  a  letter  of  several  pages.  Mrs. 
Lester  had  a  not  uncommon  passion  for  partici- 
pating in  a  secret,  especially  one  of  a  romantic 
nature.  She  always  found  occasion  to  let  Pound 
know,  in  a  confidential  aside,  about  these  com- 
munications. For  his  part,  Pound  generally 
found  an  opportunity  to  drop  in  at  Mrs.  Lester's, 
soon  after  one  of  these  letters  came,  and  then  she 
would  give  him  the  letter  itself  to  read. 

There  was  nothing  romantic  in  Pound's  motive, 
however.  It  was  purely  precautionary.  And 
there  was  nothing  in  the  letters  themselves  which 

263 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


he  might  not  read  without  embarrassment,  for 
Emma  never  even  alluded  to  him.  She  spoke 
only  of  her  travels,  of  herself  and  May.  She 
seemed  interested  in  what  she  saw  and  quite 
happy. 

Along  in  April  he  noticed,  by  the  published  real 
estate  transfers,  that  Emma's  agent  had  sold  the 
tract  of  land  which  she  had  bought  the  year  be- 
fore. The  price  mentioned  was  sixty  thousand 
dollars,  so,  evidently,  she  had  made  a  comfortable 
profit  on  the  transaction.  She  was  a  thrifty  per- 
son. He  calculated  that  she  must  be  worth  about 
three  hundred  thousand  dollars — which,  surely, 
ought  to  satisfy  a  person  of  her  modest  tastes. 
The  week  the  land  was  sold  Mrs.  Lester  showed 
him  a  letter  from  Emma  in  which  she  spoke  of 
visiting  the  Orient;  after  that,  she  said,  she 
thought  she  would  return  to  Paris  to  live,  for 
she  liked  it  there. 

"I  don't  suppose,"  she  added,  "I'll  be  able  to 
keep  May  with  me  much  longer.  She  writes  about 
a  pound  of  letters  a  week  to  Toronto.  I  guess 
she's  got  the  marrying  bug." 

Pound  was  not  surprised  at  this,  for  young 
264 

I 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Tommy  Watrous  was  in  Toronto — manager 
there  of  the  bucketshop's  branch  office.  It  had 
long  been  an  open  secret  to  him  that  shy,  gentle 
May  found  something  very  congenial  in  blue- 
eyed,  curly-haired  Tommy.  An  odd  tenderness 
for  the  girl — a  sort  of  vague,  sweet  regret — long 
lurked  in  Pound's  own  agitated  heart.  It  was  the 
sort  of  sentiment  for  her  which  made  him  feel 
generous  toward  Tommy  as  her  presumptive 
sweetheart. 

During  the  fight  with  the  "regulars,"  when  he 
and  Emma  had  found  themselves  reestablished 
in  friendly  but  unsentimental  cooperation,  she  had 
brought  up  Tommy's  case.  She  thought  Pound 
ought  to  give  him  a  boost.  He  surmised  that  she 
was  speaking  more  for  May,  as  Tommy's  pros- 
pective wife,  than  for  Tommy  himself.  He  com- 
plied at  once.  It  pleased  him  to  be,  in  a  way,  a 
fairy  godfather  to  the  young  pair.  Besides, 
Tommy  was  capable  enough  in  a  business  way. 
So  Pound  invested  him  with  the  managership  of 
the  important  branch  office  at  Toronto,  where  he 
had  been  giving  a  very  good  account  of  himself 

ever  since. 

265 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


There  remained,  therefore,  this  very  tenuous 
little  thread  between  himself  and  his  former  wife 
— her  prospective  brother-in-law  was  one  of 
Pound's  lieutenants.  But  for  more  than  half  a 
year  Emma  had  been  on  the  other  side  of  the 
world.  He  considered  the  account  forever  closed. 
Of  Hamilton  he  had  not  heard  a  word  in  months. 
The  old  life  was  dead  and  buried.  The  new  life 
claimed  him  wholly. 

He  and  Eileen  were  married  a  month  after 
Emma  left  St.  Paul.  For  two  months  they  trav- 
eled, combining  some  business  with  pleasure,  for 
Pound  visited  his  principal  offices  at  Seattle,  Chi- 
cago, Toronto,  Buffalo.  Returning  to  St.  Paul 
he  had  a  surprise  in  store  for  his  bride.  He  had 
purchased  a  handsome  residence,  paying  sixty 
thousand  dollars  for  it.  Eileen  was  as  delighted 
as  a  child.  With  fond  and  happy  enthusiasm  she 
pointed  out  what  a  charming  place  the  house 
would  be  with  a  little  altering. 

They  took  the  best  suite  in  the  leading  hotel, 
and  Eileen  devoted  herself  joyfully  to  the  house. 
She  made  a  great  business  of  consulting  the  archi- 
tect, the  landscape  gardener,  the  decorators,  the 

266 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


furnishers — often,  in  her  pretty  impatience,  trip- 
ping sunnily  into  the  bucketshop  to  take  Pound 
away  and  show  him  a  plan  or  a  sample  of  up- 
holstery. It  was  the  middle  of  May  before  they 
moved  into  the  house.  The  total  investment  had 
then  risen  to  a  hundred  and  five  thousand.  But 
Pound  paid  the  bills  good-naturedly.  In  fact,  this 
new  notion  of  being  the  proprietor  of  a  rich,  spa- 
cious house  secretly  appealed  to  him  hardly  less 
than  to  Eileen.  It  was  his  patent  of  aristocracy, 
the  sign  and  seal  of  his  success.  Few  local  mag- 
nates had  a  sweller  house  than  his. 

Taking  possession  of  the  house,  they  gave  a 
dinner  party,  inviting  the  Lesters,  the  Mullenses 
and  a  dozen  others.  The  guests,  especially  the 
bejeweled  women,  admired  the  house  and  grounds 
lavishly,  showered  congratulations  upon  Pound, 
drank  gayly  to  his  further  success.  Pound,  in  the 
evening  dress  which  he  could  now  wear  without 
any  sense  of  strangeness,  received  the  congratu- 
lations with  urbane  composure.  It  was,  indeed,  a 
swell  house— the  indubitable  habitation  of  a  na- 
bob. He  glanced  complacently  about  as  the  guests 
examined  it  from  top  to  bottom.  Often,  espe- 

267 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


cially,  his  glance  turned  to  his  young,  pretty  wife 
in  her  thousand-dollar  gown,  a  rope  of  pearls 
around  her  fair,  soft  neck,  diamonds  glittering  in 
her  coppery  hair.  Yes,  he  had  arrived!  Every- 
thing proclaimed  his  triumphant  success  I  His 
heart  dilated  with  pride. 

The  dinner  was  expensive.  The  wines  alone 
cost  twenty-five  dollars  a  plate.  But  if  the  bills 
were  large  he  could  stand  them.  It  was  flood 
tide  with  him.  His  bucketshop  was  operating  one 
hundred  and  sixty-two  offices  in  the  United  States 
and  Canada.  A  single  office — that  at  Toronto — 
had  over  three  hundred  active  patrons.  He  was 
paying  the  telegraph  company  eight  hundred 
dollars  a  day  for  wire  rental  and  so  on.  And 
the  game,  on  the  whole,  was  going  his  way.  The 
money  poured  in.  Notwithstanding  Emma's  ali- 
mony and  the  disbursements  on  account  of  the 
house,  he  could  command  a  million  four  hundred 
thousand  dollars  in  cash — or  as  good  as  cash — 
for  he  still  kept  the  five  hundred  thousand  dollars 
of  Government  bonds  which  he  had  bought  to 
dazzle  the  investigating  committee  with.  They 
had  proven  a  splendid  advertisement,  and  they 

268 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


could  be  converted  into  cash  at  a  moment's  notice. 

But  Pound  had  another  motive  for  keeping 
them.  He  was  aware  that  a  considerable  element 
of  risk  attended  his  business.  The  game  might, 
some  time  or  other,  turn  strongly  against  him; 
stocks  or  grain  or  both  might  rise  rapidly  and 
continuously  when  his  customers  had  "bought" 
great  quantities  of  them.  It  would  be  very  pleas- 
ant to  have,  in  all  circumstances,  that  half  a  mil- 
lion of  Government  bonds  tucked  snugly  away, 
removed  from  the  hazards  of  the  business.  If 
the  very  worst  should  come  and  the  bucketshop 
itself  go  to  pot  he  would  have  that  half  million 
and  the  hundred-thousand-dollar  home,  which  he 
had  taken  the  fond  precaution  of  putting  in 
Eileen's  name.  Converting  the  bonds  and  even 
the  house  into  prime  securities  bearing  a  fair  rate 
of  interest,  they  would  have,  at  lowest,  twenty- 
five  thousand  a  year  to  scrape  along  on.  The 
house  and  the  bonds,  indeed,  gave  him  a  pleasant 
sense  of  being  impregnably  fortified  against 
chance. 

He  lost  interest  in  Mrs.  Lester's  confidential 
notices  of  a  communication  from  Emma;  no 

269 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


longer  took  the  trouble  to  call  and  read  the  let- 
ters. On  every  side  his  position  seemed  impreg- 
nable. His  old  enemies,  the  "regulars,"  appeared 
to  be  beaten  to  a  finish.  For  some  time  they  had 
not  wagged  a  finger  against  him.  People  who 
had  no  particular  love  for  him  treated  him  with 
a  very  agreeable  deference.  They  had  witnessed 
his  power.  Not  even  Luck  could  undo  him.  He 
was  insured  against  her  by  his  unassailable  re- 
serve of  bonds  and  house. 

And  he  was  still  infatuated  with  his  wife.  He 
grumbled  a  little,  humorously;  but  secretly  he  be- 
gan to  like  putting  on  evening  dress  almost  every 
day  for  dinner;  being  waited  upon  by  an  irre- 
proachable man  servant;  having  a  butler  to  open 
the  door  the  moment  he  appeared.  Usually  they 
dined  out,  or  had  somebody  or  other  to  dinner 
at  their  house.  Especially  he  liked  to  have  his 
wife  prettier  and  better  dressed  than  the  other 
women;  liked  her  air — in  which,  he  thought,  she 
excelled — of  being  to  the  habit  of  butlers  born. 
His  life  with  Emma  he  not  only  put  behind  him, 
but  fairly  forgot,  as  the  butterfly  may  well  forget 

the  caterpillar. 

270 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  CAT  COMES  BACK 

ONE  afternoon,  in  the  week  following  the 
dinner   party   with   which   the    Pounds 
opened  their  new  house,   two  women, 
neatly   but   plainly    dressed,    debarked    from    a 
French  liner  at  New  York,  drove  to  a  small  hotel 
and  registered  under  assumed  names. 

Half  an  hour  later,  a  lank,  round-shouldered 
man  with  a  heavy  red  mustache  dropped  in  at  the 
modest  hotel,  scratched  "Hamilton"  on  a  blank 
card  and  asked  that  it  be  sent  up  to  the  ladies.  In 
the  somewhat  shabby  hotel  parlor  the  younger  of 
the  ladies,  entering  first,  greeted  him  with  shy 
happiness.  Her  brown  eyes  shone.  Giving  him 
her  hand,  faint  blushes  played  over  her  cheeks; 
she  turned  her  head  and  slightly  changed  the  pos- 
ture of  her  hands  and  body  with  little,  nervous 
movements  like  those  of  a  fluttered  bird. 

271 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


The  lank  man's  eyes  glowed  down  upon  her. 
Presently,  hearing  a  brisk  step,  he  said  hastily 
under  his  breath — and  almost  solemnly:  "Six 
months,  May — not  a  drop  I" 

The  young  lady  swayed  lightly  toward  him; 
her  hand  brushed  his.  "I'm  so  glad  I"  she 
whispered. 

At  which  point  the  other  lady  entered — some- 
what older,  shorter  also,  and  of  fuller  figure,  with 
very  dark,  demure-looking  eyes.  She  was  smiling 
a  little,  as  though  a  pleasant  experience  lingered 
warmly  in  her  mind.  She  would  have  come  down 
sooner,  in  fact,  but  she  had  been  telephoning  to 
Mr.  Thomas  Watrous,  at  the  King  Edward  Hotel 
in  Toronto.  The  brief  conversation  seemed  to 
please  her.  Once  or  twice  she  interrupted  to  say, 
"That's  first-rate,"  or  "That's  just  right,"  and 
before  hanging  up  the  receiver  she  said,  "Looks 
good  to  me,  honey.  See  you  soon."  It  should 
be  said  that  she  had  always  called  Tommy 
"honey,"  even  when  he  was  cashier  in  Hilpricht 
&  Co.'s  and  she  hardly  knew  him  at  all.  Her 

conversation  was  always  unconventional,  but  in 

272 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


other  respects  she  was  fairly  a  model  of  pro- 
priety. 

She  greeted  Hamilton  very  heartily,  with  a 
firm  clasp  of  the  hand,  but  her  manner  on  the 
whole  was  brisk  and  businesslike.  It  was  busi- 
ness, indeed,  that  occupied  her  mind  as  she  sat 
down  to  talk.  Every  detail  of  Pound's  position 
lay  open  to  her  as  on  a  checker-board.  She  had 
a  good  many  moves  to  make. 

Not  the  least  breath  of  any  move  reached 
Pound,  however.  The  first  of  July  he  and  his 
wife  took  possession  of  Mullens'  extensive  place 
at  Lake  Sorel,  where  he  supposed  they  were  going 
to  spend  the  summer.  But  in  August  they  went  to 
the  seashore.  Pound  had  not  expected  to  go. 
It  was  quite  inconvenient.  It  seemed,  however, 
that  Eileen's  health  demanded  it.  Her  physician 
said  so,  and  she  didn't  wish  to  go  alone. 

Eileen  had  grown  quite  restless.  Some  dissatis- 
faction seemed  to  prey  upon  her.  Pound  was 
encouraged  by  the  physician  to  attribute  this  to  a 
nervous  state  not  unnatural  in  a  young,  newly- 
married  woman.  He  had  no  particular  fault  to 

273 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


find  with  her.  Almost  always  she  was  amiable, 
and  he  was  still  under  the  strong  charm  of  her 
pretty  person,  her  many  little  cuddling,  coquettish, 
enticing  ways.  Yet  he  began  to  suspect  a  certain 
defect  in  her  character.  Even  before  July  she 
had  noticeably  lost  interest  in  the  new,  fine  house. 
The  new  greenhouse  and  the  orchids  had  kept 
her  amused  for  two  weeks,  then  she  had  left  them 
to  the  gardener.  The  idea  of  taking  the  Mullens 
place  at  Lake  Sorel  charmed  her  when  Pound 
proposed  it.  But  the  Mullenses  themselves  had 
gone  to  the  seashore,  and  presently  Eileen  began 
to  droop  and  pine  for  the  sea.  She  didn't  wish 
to  go  to  York  Harbor,  where  the  Mullens 
were,  however;  but  to  some  different  place.  She 
settled  upon  Mount  Desert.  That  was  exactly 
the  spot  her  health  demanded.  In  short,  Pound 
began  to  suspect  that  while  Eileen  was  a  dear 
child,  she  soon  tired  of  her  toys  and  if  new  ones 
were  not  provided  she  felt  hurt. 

He  turned  the  management  of  the  St.   Paul 
office  over  to  Patterson,  therefore,  and  went  to 

Mount  Desert  with  Eileen.     He  soon  found  it 

274 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


quite  a  bore  there.  He  had  a  daily  letter  from 
Patterson  and  daily  telegrams,  to  which  he  re- 
plied, giving  advice  and  instructions.  Yet  there 
wasn't  much  for  him  to  do,  and  at  the  end  of  a 
fortnight  he  was  thinking  he  would  be  glad  of  any 
plausible  excuse  to  get  away. 

The  stock  market  had  been  rising  since  the  mid- 
dle of  July,  so  the  bucketshop  had  been  losing  on 
the  whole;  but  these  losses  were  by  no  means 
heavy  enough  to  disturb  him.  The  combination 
of  "regular"  brokers  lifted  no  finger  against  him. 
He  was  thinking  of  anything  but  danger  when  a 
reason  of  the  most  valid  but  unwelcome  sort  re- 
called him  in  hot  haste  to  St.  Paul. 

In  their  spacious  suite  at  the  seaside  hotel,  one 
afternoon,  he  was  going  through  the  daily  duty 
of  dressing  for  dinner,  with  all  the  abstracted 
deliberateness  of  a  thoroughly  bored  man,  when 

a  boy  brought  up  the  following  telegram : 

i 

Office  raided  by  sheriffs  as  common 
gambling-house.  Some  books  and  pa- 
pers taken.  Furniture  smashed.  Think 

you  better  come  home. 

PATTERSON. 

275 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Pound,  his  collar  in  one  hand  and  the  telegram 
in  the  other,  let  out  a  string  of  exclamations  which 
so  electrified  Eileen  as  to  interrupt  even  the  be- 
loved rites  of  the  toilet.  She  came  hastily  from 
her  room,  half  dressed,  her  eyes  wide  with  re- 
proach and  alarm,  and  shut  the  door  behind  her 
to  save  the  French  maid's  chaste  ears  from 
Pound's  language.  She  reproached  him  for  his 
expressions;  pouted  and  even  wept  a  little  over 
his  determination  to  leave  at  once.  The  tears, 
however,  were  mostly  for  the  sake  of  appearance, 
because  of  late  a  number  of  the  men  guests  had 
been  very  nice  to  her  indeed,  and  Pound  had  been 
almost  gruff. 

The  raid  upon  the  bucketshop  was,  of  course, 
a  bold  and  malicious  stroke  by  the  "regulars." 
Among  them  they  could  muster  considerable 
political  influence,  to  which,  presumably,  the 
sheriff  was  not  insensible.  The  warrant  charging 
that  the  bucketshop  was  a  common  gambling- 
house  had  been  sworn  out  by  an  obscure  patron  of 
no  financial  responsibility. 

Pound  instituted  suit  for  damages  against  the 
276 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


sheriff,  procured  an  injunction  preventing  future 
raids,  recovered  his  books  and  papers.  In  short, 
in  a  legal  way,  he  promptly  regained  his  ground. 
But  the  unfriendly  newspapers  had  made  much  of 
the  raid.  Reports  of  it  had  been  widely  pub- 
lished. The  moral  effect  upon  the  customers  of 
the  bucketshop  was  exceedingly  bad.  A  good 
many  patrons  withdrew  their  accounts  and  a  run 
of  considerable  proportions  set  in.  Pound  sus- 
pected that'  unfriendly  eyes  had  scrutinized  the 
books  that  had  been  seized— a  suspicion  that  was 
confirmed  when  the  hostile  newspapers  published 
details  of  the  business  which  he  was  not  anxious 
to  advertise.  Moreover,  he  felt  it  politic  to  dis- 
burse more  money  here  and  there  for  protection. 
This  had  always  been  his  policy  when  he  found 
venality  combined  with  power  to  injure  him.  The 
raid  set  on  a  swarm  of  grafters  to  bleed  him 
afresh.  He  calculated— in  excessively  bad  humor 
—that  in  loss  of  money,  business  and  prestige  the 
raid  had  cost  him  somewhere  from  one  to  two 
hundred  thousand  dollars.  And  in  spite  of  his 
bluffing  suit  against  the  sheriff  he  knew  that  he 

277 


really  had  no  recourse.  He  confessed  that  he 
had  not  credited  the  "regulars"  with  ability  to 
deliver  so  bold,  shrewd,  well-timed  and  telling  a 
blow. 

But  more  remained.  In  the  raid  his  own  desk 
had  been  broken  open  and  certain  private  papers 
taken.  These  papers  he  had  been  unable  to  re- 
cover. Everybody  disclaimed  knowledge  of  them. 

He  had  been  home  ten  days  when  he  received  a 
wire  from  Eileen  reading:  "Am  leaving  for  St. 
Paul  this  evening;  meet  me."  The  unexpected- 
ness as  well  as  the  curtness  of  the  message  dis- 
quieted him.  He  wondered  what  could  be  bring- 
ing her  home.  He  soon  discovered.  He  had  seen 
her  in  many  melting  moods.  He  now  saw  her  in 
violent  anger.  Indeed,  he  suffered  his  second 
really  harrowing  scene  with  her. 

For  somebody  had  sent  Eileen  a  little  package 
containing  the  stubs  of  Pound's  private  check- 
books which  had  been  abstracted  from  his  desk. 
Those  entries  upon  the  stubs  which  were  of  a 
dubious  nature  were  dated  before  their  marriage 

— indeed,  mostly  before  their  engagement.     Yet 

278 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


they  sort  of  turned  him  seamy  side  out;  and  there 
was  the  entry  of  a  hundred  and  seventy-five  thou- 
sand dollars  paid  to  Emma  after  Emma  had  hit 
Eileen  in  the  face.  Pound  explained  as  best  he 
could. 

After  the  scene  ended  he  felt  as  though  he  had 
been  run  over  by  a  dray.  Also,  he  felt  enormously 
cheap.  But  aside  from  all  that,  an  alarming  sus- 
picion possessed  his  mind. 

He  had  rather  wondered  over  the  shrewd 
stroke  of  the  "regulars."  But  in  this  affair  of  the 
checkbooks  there  seemed  a  feminine,  malicious, 
apish  mischievousness  that  looked  very  familiar. 
As  soon  as  he  could  get  away  he  hastened  to  Mrs. 
Lester.  Yes,  she  had  heard  from  Emma  in  Luck- 
now,  barely  a  week  before.  She  produced  the 
letter.  The  hand  was  certainly  Emma's.  It  was 
dated  and  postmarked  in  the  far  Indian  town. 
The  writer  spoke  of  going  on  to  China  and  Japan. 
So,  evidently,  Pound's  suspicion  was  unfounded. 

Six  weeks  later  another  very  untoward  thing 
happened.  Somebody  tapped  the  bucketshop's 
private  wire  and  sent  a  forged  message  to  every 

279 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


branch  office  between  St.   Paul  and  the   Coast. 
The  message  said: 

This  company  will  wind  up  its  affairs 
and  retire  from  business  immediately. 
Close  up  all  local  trades  at  once,  on  the 
basis  of  today's  last  quotations.  Draw 
on  the  main  office  for  the  balance  due 
customers. 

Usually,  of  a  Saturday,  most  of  the  office  force 
left  soon  after  noon;  but  one  telegraph  operator 
and  a  clerk  or  two  stayed  on  duty  until  about  four 
o'clock.  This  Saturday,  however,  Pound  closed 
the  office  at  one  o'clock  in  order  to  give  everybody 
a  chance  to  attend  an  especially  exciting  ball  game, 
the  closing  one  of  the  season.  The  forged  mes- 
sage was  sent  out  a  few  minutes  after  everybody 
had  left  the  office. 

It  made  endless  trouble.  The  newspapers  got 
hold  of  it.  A  report  that  the  bucketshop  proposed 
going  out  of  business  was  published  broadcast. 
Local  managers  at  the  branch  offices  began  at 
once  notifying  customers  that  trades  were  closed, 
in  conformity  with  the  bogus  instructions.  At 
some  points  the  local  banks — remaining  open  until 

four  o'clock  Saturdays  as  well  as  other  days — 

280 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


cashed  the  managers'  drafts  upon  the  main  office, 
and  the  money  was  actually  paid  back  to  the  cus- 
tomers. These  drafts  Pound  had  to  pay.  Other 
customers  insisted  upon  closing  their  accounts  and 
withdrawing  their  money  even  after  being  assured 
that  the  message  was  a  forgery.  Temporarily, 
at  least,  the  message  demoralized  the  bucket- 
shop's  whole  Northwestern  system,  and  the  with- 
drawals actually  drained  Pound  of  a  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  dollars  in  cash. 

Ordinarily,  he  might  not  have  minded  it  so 
much.  But  the  stock  market  had  been  steadily  ris- 
ing for  more  than  two  months,  and  he  had  been 
as  steadily  losing  money  to  his  customers.  With 
a  hundred  and  sixty-two  offices  in  operation  the 
total  of  such  losses  was  quite  imposing.  It  was 
different  from  the  old  days.  Repeated  experience 
of  losses  and  the  many  attacks  upon  the  bucket- 
shop  had  shaken  confidence  even  among  the  tall- 
grass  bulls.  Now,  when  their  accounts  showed  a 
neat  profit,  they  were  very  apt  to  demand  the 
money  and  take  it  away  with  them  instead  of  put- 
ting it  back  into  the  game  as  formerly. 

281 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Luck  was  frowning  upon  him  persistently. 
Often  he  had  a  disagreeable  feeling  as  of  sands 
shifting  and  running  out  beneath  his  feet.  It 
tended  to  make  him  morose.  And  at  the  same 
time  Fortune  was  unkind  to  him  in  a  quite  differ- 
ent quarter. 

It  was  some  time  after  Eileen's  return  from 
Mount  Desert — but  so  gradually  he  could  not  say 
exactly  when — that  a  surprising  discovery  devel- 
oped. He  learned,  namely,  that  his  state — his 
elegance  and  swellness — was  the  merest  counter- 
feit and  fraud;  that  he  and  Eileen  were  not  the 
real  thing  at  all,  but  only  the  cheapest  pinchbeck 
imitation.  This  discovery,  naturally,  was  un- 
folded to  him  by  Eileen.  It  was  a  cause  of  her 
dissatisfaction,  and  it  subtly  humiliated  him. 
They  had  no  social  position,  and  without  a  social 
position  their  swell  house  and  butler  were  like  a 
silk  hat  above  a  ragged  coat. 

Eileen,  it  appeared,  had  known  this  all  along, 
and  had  ardently  cherished  a  hope  of  converting 
the  imitation  into  the  genuine.  For  one  thing, 

after  the  return  from  Mount  Desert  she  had  gone 

282 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


in  recklessly  for  charity,  imagining  she  might 
bribe  her  way  into  the  real  social  position  without 
which  the  fine  house  was  merely  a  mockery.  She 
had  subscribed  lavishly  to  all  sorts  of  philan- 
thropic undertakings.  The  ladies  took  her  money, 
and  snubbed  her.  What  she  suffered  Pound  could 
really  not  understand,  although  that  was  not  be- 
cause she  did  not  use  words  and  tears  enough  to 
explain  it. 

She  herself  might  have  been  eligible  enough; 
but  Pound's  enemies,  the  "regulars"  and  their 
allies,  constituted  the  local  aristocracy— the  suc- 
cessful people  who  had  made  their  money  in  ap- 
proved conventional  ways.  These  ways  might 
include,  for  example,  larceny  of  public  timber 
lands;  but  they  were  conventional.  Naturally, 
this  conventional,  conservative  element,  which 
was  socially  dominant,  held  their  social  blackballs 
over  Pound. 

In  time  poor  Eileen  discovered  this.  Her  hus- 
band's business  might  shower  gold  upon  her,  but 
it  was  a  stone  wall  to  her  social  ambitions.  So 
she  conceived  a  bright  idea ;  namely,  that  Pound 

283 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


should  convert  his  bucketshop  into  a  "regular'* 
house.  She  was  only  hurt  and  low-spirited  when 
he  tried  to  explain  to  her  how  impossible  that  was. 
And  then,  she  began  treating  the  Lesters,  the 
Mullenses  and  that  sporty  set  with  coolness.  She 
could  at  least  take  the  mournful  consolation  of 
being  superior  to  them.  If  she  couldn't  be  the 
real  thing  she  could  take  a  kind  of  childish  spite 
in  refusing  any  longer  to  be  an  imitation.  Pres- 
ently she  actually  snubbed  them.  So  the  swell  new 
house  was  empty  and  lonesome.  Eileen's  un- 
happy face  reproached  her  morose  husband. 

Also,  the  stock  market  kept  on  rising.  The 
bucketshop's  losses  accumulated  until  Pound's 
bank  roll,  including  his  half  a  million  of  Govern- 
ment bonds,  was  down  to  a  million  dollars. 

This  was  the  situation  when  the  Legislature 
met.  The  "regulars"  had  long  advertised  their 
intention  to  procure  the  passage  of  a  drastic  anti- 
bucketshop  bill,  under  which  Pound  could  be 
driven  out  of  business.  Naturally,  Pound  pro- 
posed to  fight  them.  His  only  dependable  weapon 

was  money,   and  he  employed  it  liberally.     To 

284 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


purchase  venality  which  was  clothed  with  power 
had  always  been  part  of  his  policy,  pursued  with  a 
reckless  coritemptuousness.  In  the  preliminary 
skirmishes  concerning  this  anti-bucketshop  meas- 
ure he  had  disbursed  some  thirty  thousand  dol- 
lars, using  any  agencies  that  seemed  likely  to  bring 
results. 

Before  the  meeting  of  the  Legislature  he  had 
been  waited  upon  by  Colonel  Myron  Yew,  a  stout, 
red-faced,  lumpy-nose,  elderly  person  who  for 
some  time  had  been  known  to  him  in  an  incidental 
way.  The  colonel  was  a  sport  and  a  lawyer,  but 
his  reputation  in  the  former  capacity  was  much 
better  than  in  the  latter.  He  was  commonly 
known,  in  fact,  as  more  or  less  of  a  shyster,  whose 
principal  business  consisted  of  dealing  in  dirty 
politics.  The  colonel  mentioned  the  anti-bucket- 
shop  bill,  and  his  own  abilities  in  a  line  that  would 
prove  profitable  to  Pound.  He  came,  in  short, 
seeking  employment  with  the  utmost  frankness. 
His  idea  was  that  certain  statesmen,  who  were 
amenable  to  his  sapient  advice,  should  be  permit- 
ted to  deal  in  stocks  or  grain  at  Mr.  Pound's 
shop,  and  should  also  be  permitted  to  win  appro- 

285 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


priate  sums  at  the  proper  moments.  In  his  usual 
reckless  contemptuousness,  Pound  was  well 
enough  inclined  toward  the  proposal.  If  Colonel 
Yew  could  deliver  any  votes  he  was  perfectly 
willing  to  pay  a  fair-going  price  therefor. 

Pound  foresaw  that  his  bank  roll  was  bound 
to  suffer,  and  while  the  question  of  cash  was  not 
really  pressing  with  him,  it  was  certainly  pend- 
ing; for  with  the  stock  market  booming  as  it  was, 
and  a  trade  as  extensive  as  his  own,  the  bucket- 
shop's  losses  to  its  customers  were  assum- 
ing staggering  proportions.  At  Toronto,  espe- 
cially, although  Tommy  Watrous  had  worked  up 
a  fine  business,  and  proudly  boasted  that  he  had 
nearly  five  hundred  customers,  the  losses  were 
killing.  In  a  single  week,  at  all  the  offices, 
the  loss  reached  eighty  thousand  dollars.  It 
seemed  not  improbable  that  Pound  would  pres- 
ently have  to  fall  back  upon  his  Government  bonds, 
which  he  had  resolved  t6  cling  to  at  all  hazards. 

But  at  this  juncture,  luck  signally  favored  him; 
and  the  good  luck  came  precisely  from  Toronto 
where  his  luck  had  been  rather  worse  than  any- 
where else. 

286 


CHAPTER  XIII 

HOW  LUCK  FAVORED  POUND 

BEFORE  the  Legislature  had  been  in  session 
a  month  Tommy  Watrous  wrote  Pound 
a  long  letter,  inclosing  a  lengthy  clipping 
from  the  St.  Jude  (Ontario)  Daily  Intelligencer. 
The  gist  of  the  clipping  was  that  the  contest  over, 
the  will  of  the  late  G.  H.  Wyman  had  been  decided, 
the  will  having  been  set  aside  and  the  estate 
awarded  to  Mr.  Wyman's  two  sons,  Algernon  G. 
and  Henry  M.  The  estate  was  inventoried  at 
one  million  eight  hundred  thousand  dollars, 
mostly  in  cash  and  prime  securities.  "The  es- 
trangement between  Mr.  Wyman  and  his  sons," 
the  Intelligencer  added  discreetly,  "continued  for 
several  years  prior  to  his  lamented  decease,  dur- 
ing which  time  the  young  gentlemen,  who  now 
come  into  this  princely  inheritance,  lived  in  quite 
straitened  circumstances." 

Algernon  G.  Wyman,  it  appeared  from 
Tommy's  letter,  had  been  a  friend  of  the  man- 
ager  of  the  bucketshop's  small  branch  at  St.  Jude. 

287 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


In  his  impecunious  days  he  had  occasionally  bor- 
rowed twenty  dollars  and  bought  ten  shares  of 
something  or  other,  and  had  usually  lost  the 
money.  He  appeared  to  be  a  flighty,  addle-pated 
young  man,  considerably  addicted  to  Scotch  whis- 
key and  other  follies,  whom  the  elder  Wyman, 
presumably,  had  disinherited  for  very  good  rea- 
sons. But  the  main  point  was  that  Algernon  was 
infatuated  with  the  bucketshop  business;  thought 
it  the  finest  possible  opening  for  a  capitalist.  "He 
has  been  talking  to  me  nearly  all  day,"  Tommy 
wrote.  "I  guess  this  big  wad  of  money  has  sort 
of  made  him  dizzy.  He  wants  to  buy  out  our 
Canadian  offices  right  away.  Of  course,  I  told 
him  to  go  right  up  to  St.  Paul  and  see  you,  and 
gave  him  a  letter  of  introduction.  He  has  gone 
back  to  St.  Jude  to  get  his  brother.  Expect  you 
will  see  both  of  them  about  a  day  after  you 
receive  this.  You  can  size  up  Algernon  in  a  few 
minutes.  I  don't  believe  he  and  his  money  will 
stay  together  very  long.  Don't  I  get  a  commis- 
sion on  this?" 

That  same  afternoon  Tommy  wired: 

Algernon  is  still  in  town ;  says  he  has 
written  you.    Don't  you  think  it  would 
288 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


be  best  to  run  down  here  and  see  him — 
without  appearing  anxious? 

The  next  morning  Pound  received  a  long,  type- 
written letter  on  the  stationery  of  the  King 
Edward  Hotel,  Toronto.  It  began: 

Dear  Sir:  Making  reference  to  the 
conversation  had  between  the  under- 
signed and  Mr.  Thomas  Watrous,  man- 
ager of  the  office  of  the  Moxley  Stock 
and  Grain  Company  at  this  place,  and 
also  to  such  communications  as  may 
have  passed  by  post  and  wire  between 
yourself  and  the  said  Mr.  Thomas 
Watrous 

The  writer,  in  fact,  rambled  like  an  inebriate 
man  on  an  icy  sidewalk.  What  he  had  to  say 
was  that,  upon  telephoning  his  brother  at  St. 
Jude,  he  discovered  that  Henry  had  started  north 
on  a  hunting  expedition.  He  was  now  trying  to 
reach  him  by  wire  and  get  him  to  return  at  once 
to  Toronto,  so  that  both  of  them  could  proceed 
immediately  to  St.  Paul.  He  begged  Mr. 
Pound,  meanwhile,  to  say  whether  it  would  be 
possible  for  himself  and  his  brother  to  buy  the 
Canadian  system  of  the  Moxley  Stock  and  Grain 
Company  or  to  buy  a  substantial  interest  in  the 

289 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


company  itself.  In  case  Mr.  Pound  was  unfavor- 
ably inclined  toward  this  proposal,  he  hoped  Mr. 
Pound  would  not  give  a  positive  answer  in  the 
negative  until  he  and  his  brother  Henry  had  an 
opportunity  to  talk  it  over  with  Mr.  Pound  per- 
sonally. He  was  expecting  to  have  word  of  his 
brother  almost  any  moment.  This  communica- 
tion was  signed  Alg.  G.  Wyman. 

Pound  took  much  care  in  framing  an  answer. 
He  judged  that  he  had  to  deal  with  a  rank  sucker, 
which  was  all  the  more  reason  why  he  should  not 
expose  himself  to  legal  attack.  The  bucketshop 
was  drifting  toward  bankruptcy,  especially  as 
Pound  had  sequestrated  five  hundred  thousand 
dollars  of  its  assets  in  Government  bonds,  which 
he  proposed  to  keep  for  his  own  personal  use. 
His  task,  therefore,  was  to  make  Mr.  Wyman 
think  the  concern  was  in  a  highly  flourishing  state, 
and  to  sell  him  an  interest  in  it  on  that  basis,  yet 
not  to  commit  himself  in  writing  or  before  wit- 
nesses in  such  a  way  that  Mr.  Wyman  could  sub- 
stantiate a  charge  of  fraudulent  misrepresenta- 
tion. 

In  substance,  therefore,  he  wrote  that  while 
290 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


the  company  had  been  highly  profitable  the  care 
of  conducting  it  alone  was  proving  injurious  to  his 
health ;  he  realized,  too,  that  if  the  Messrs.  Wy- 
man,  with  their  ample  capital,  were  minded  to 
go  into  that  business  they  might  set  up  a  com- 
peting concern.  For  the  sake  of  having  some 
capable  persons  associated  with  himself  in  the 
management  of  the  company  and  to  avoid  compe- 
tition he  might  consent  to  sell  the  Messrs.  Wyman 
an  interest  in  the  concern. 

Mr.  Wyman  was  very  glad,  indeed,  to  hear  it 
— as  appeared  from  the  long,  meandering  tele- 
gram which  he  at  once  sent  Pound,  and  the  still 
longer  and  more  meandering  letter.  In  addition 
to  these  communications,  Mr.  Wyman  kept 
Tommy  Watrous  busy  sending  messages  over  the 
private  wire.  All  the  while  he  was  earnestly 
endeavoring  to  locate  his  brother  Henry. 

Within  two  days  Pound,  at  Mr.  Wyman's  im- 
patient solicitation,  submitted  a  definite  proposal. 
The  capital  of  the  company,  as  appeared  on  its 
letterheads,  was  one  million  dollars.  It  might 
as  well  have  been  ten  millions,  or  ten  cents,  for 
Pound  owned  it  all.  He  offered  to  sell  the 

291 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Messrs.  Wyman  twenty-five  hundred  shares, 
«qual  to  a  one-quarter  interest,  for  three  hundred 
and  seventy-five  thousand  dollars,  or  at  the  rate 
of  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  a  share.  With 
this  proposal  he  inclosed  the  original  statement 
of  that  investigating  committee  before  which  he 
had  exhibited  seven  hundred  thousand  dollars  of 
Government  bonds  and  statements  from  the 
banks  showing  that  the  company  had  more  than 
four  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  cash  on  deposit. 
He  added,  quite  truthfully,  that  a  statement  of  a 
later  date  would  show  still  larger  resources — 
without  adding  that  a  statement  of  the  present 
date  would  not  show  nearly  so  much.  He  pointed 
out  that  he  was  sending  Mr.  Wyman  the  original 
report  and  begged  Mr.  Wyman  to  preserve  that 
precious  document  very  carefully  and  hand  it  to 
Mr.  Thomas  Watrous  as  soon  as  he  had  exam- 
ined it. 

The  answer  to  this  was  a  wire  from  Wyman : 

Feel  confident  of  arriving  at  conclu- 
sions with  negotiations.    In  signification 
of  same  am  depositing  one  hundred  and 
fifty   thousand   dollars   earnest   money 
292 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


with  London  and  St.  Lawrence  Bank. 
Have  received  intelligence  of  locality  of 
my  brother  Henry.  Expect  him  here 
Saturday. 

Half  an  hour  behind  this  message  came  a  dis- 
patch from  the  London  and  St.  Lawrence  Bank 
at  Toronto,  to  the  effect  that  A.  G.  Wyman  had 
deposited  there  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
dollars,  for  the  use  of  John  Pound  in  case  certain 
stock  was  delivered  by  Pound  to  Wyman  in  a 
manner  satisfactory  to  Wyman. 

It  seemed  to  Pound  high  time  to  strike.  The 
fruit,  indeed,  was  falling  into  his  lap  of  its  own 
weight;  but  a  quick,  dextrous  little  shake  now 
would  bring  it  down  at  once,  and  he  was  naturally 
impatient.  For  the  moment  things  were  quiet  at 
St.  Paul.  He  resolved  to  slip  down  to  Toronto 
and  meet  the  brothers  on  Saturday.  He  could 
easily  invent  a  plausible  excuse  for  turning  up 
there.  Begirt  as  he  was  by  enemies,  it  was 
obviously  imprudent,  however,  to  advertise  his 
movements,  and  he  had  no  great  faith  in  Eileen's 
discretion.  He  told  her,  therefore,  that  business 
called  him  to  Chicago.  It  was  only  as  he  was 
about  to  take  the  train  that  he  wired  Tommy 

293 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Watrous  of  his  coming.  In  his  own  office  only 
Patterson  knew  his  destination. 

On  the  train  Pound  kept  to  his  compartment. 
He  wanted  to  be  alone  with  his  thoughts,  because, 
in  the  main,  they  were  pleasant  thoughts,  such  as 
suffused  his  mind  with  a  rosy  glow  and  made  his 
heart  beat  exultantly.  He  remembered  distinctly 
the  figure  of  the  Wymans'  fortune  as  the  St.  Jude 
newspaper  had  reported  it — one  million,  eight 
hundred  thousand  dollars,  mostly  in  cash  and 
prime  securities.  From  Algernon's  letters  and 
telegrams,  to  say  nothing  of  Tommy  Watrous' 
description,  he  had  formed  a  very  clear  idea  of 
the  brothers'  character.  From  the  London  and 
St.  Lawrence  Bank  at  Toronto  he  had  already 
received  a  notification  by  mail,  confirming  its  ad- 
vice by  wire  that  Mr.  Wyman  had  deposited  a 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars  there,  pro- 
visionally for  his  use.  He  really  did  not  doubt 
at  all  that  he  would  sell  the  brothers  a  quarter 
interest  in  the  bucketshop  for  three  hundred  and 
seventy-five  thousand  dollars. 

He  counted  it  up — five  hundred  thousand  in 
Government  bonds;  three  hundred  and  seventy- 

294 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


five  thousand  from  the  Wymans;  his  house. 
At  least,  he  would  be  a  millionaire.  But  three 
hundred  and  seventy-five  thousand  was  a  mere 
flea-bite  out  of  the  Wymans'  pile.  Once  he  had 
the  stupid  brothers  tied  up  in  a  partnership  with 
him,  he  would  trust  his  luck  and  genius  to  make 
a  far  bigger  inroad  than  that.  The  bucketshop 
itself  was  not  a  squeezed  lemon  by  any  means. 
Instead  of  one  million,  he  might  come  away  with 
two. 

Never  in  his  life  had  he  been  more  ruthlessly 
avid  to  get  money— a  great  deal  of  money— than 
at  this  moment.  For  one  thing,  it  irked  him 
exceedingly  that  a  lot  of  more  or  less  blockheaded 
fellows  at  St.  Paul,  and  their  dull,  virtuous  wives, 
turned  down  their  thumbs  for  him  and  Eileen 
because  he  wasn't  "regular."  He  would  like  to 
show  them,  and  the  whole  social  scheme,  what 
irregularity  really  meant;  how  good  an  outlaw, 
since  they  judged  him  one,  he  could  really  be. 
But  mostly  he  wanted  the  money  itself-wads  of 
it.  In  so  short  a  time,  riotous  expenditure  had 
become  a  sort  of  necessity  to  him,  as  drink  is  to 
some  men.  He  had  acquired  a  subtle  disorder- 

295 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


not  at  all  uncommon — which  drove  him  to  throw 
money  about,  to  burn  it  up.  He  must  have  a  whole 
suite  at  the  hotel,  even  if  he  staid  only  a  day; 
cabs  or  hired  automobiles  must  be  kept  in  wait- 
ing for  him;  whatever  cost  the  most,  he  needed. 

Several  times  of  late  he  had  been  punished  by 
an  excruciating  dream.  He  found  himself,  in  this 
dream,  bending  over  a  telegraph  instrument, 
thumping  out  messages,  with  only  a  few  dollars 
in  his  pocket  and  nothing  ahead  but  the  lean  pay- 
envelope.  Twice  he  had  wakened  from  this 
dream  in  despair,  and  then  comforted  himself  for 
a  long  while  by  moving  his  hand  across  the 
downy,  silken  bed  quilt  and  recalling  the  luxurious 
objects  in  the  room.  He  proposed  to  put  the 
reality  of  that  dream  a  long  way  from  him,  and 
nail  it  down. 

Concerning  another  necessity  he  frankly  had 
some  reservations.  Eileen  was  a  silken,  luxurious 
possession,  and  she  could  be  charming  when  she 
chose.  Of  late,  certainly,  she  had  made  it  any- 
thing but  pleasant,  and  he  perceived  clearly  that 
intelligence  was  never  her  strong  point.  Prob- 
ably she  would  always  make  him  pay  more  or 

296 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


less,  otherwise  than  merely  in  money.  Yet  she 
was  rather  a  necessity — at  least,  she  or  some  one 
like  her.  Already  a  plan  lay  tentatively  formed 
in  his  mind — to  put  forth  all  his  strength  and 
cleverness;  to  gather  up  all  the  money  he  could; 
and  then,  presently,  to  go  away  for  a  long  vaca- 
tion. He  thought  of  Paris,  the  Orient,  a  trip 
around  the  world.  There  Eileen  would  forget 
her  annoyance  against  the  best  people  of  St.  Paul. 
It  might  be  made  very  pleasant  indeed  with  plenty 
of  money,  and  the  money  was  coming  to  his  hand; 
the  Messrs.  Wyman  were  about  to  furnish  him 

with  it. 

He  left  the  train  at  Toronto  with  all  the  hot, 
taut-nerved  ardor  of  a  hunter  stalking  big  game, 
and  drove  straight  to  the  office. 

But  a  disappointment  awaited  him.  Tommy 
Watrous  met  him  apologetically.  On  Thursday 
evening,  it  appeared,  Wyman  had  received  the 
long-expected  word  from  his  brother  Henry,  who 
was  in  a  hunting  camp  far  up  in  the  Province  of 
Quebec.  The  word  was  unsatisfactory;  Henry 
had  merely  said  that  he  couldn't  possibly  come  to 
Toronto  then.  Algernon,  thereupon,  in  his  im- 

297 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


patience  to  close  the  bucketshop  deal  and  not 
knowing  Mr.  Pound  was  coming,  had  set  out  pell- 
mell  to  get  Brother  Henry  and  bring  him  back. 
Tommy  showed  the  note,  in  Algernon's  usual 
meandering  style,  which  Wyman  had  mailed  him 
from  the  train  Thursday  evening;  and  the  tele- 
gram from  Brother  Henry  which  was  inclosed  in 
the  note. 

While  disappointed,  Pound  was  by  no  means 
downcast.  No  point  in  the  game  had  been  lost; 
the  consummation  had  simply  been  delayed  a 
little.  His  coming,  at  any  rate,  gave  him  an 
opportunity  to  get  a  fuller  report  from  Tommy 
about  the  Wymans,  and  to  look  about  the  office 
a  bit.  He  could  take  the  evening  train  home. 

Having  told  Eileen  that  he  was  going  to 
Chicago  instead  of  to  Toronto,  he  used  the  buck- 
etshop's  private  wire  to  inquire,  at  the  Chicago 
office,  whether  any  message  from  Eileen  to  him- 
self had  been  received  there,  and  to  send  her, 
under  Chicago  date,  a  dispatch  of  conjugal  greet- 
ing. For  this  purpose  he  went  to  the  rear  of  the 
office  where  the  telegraph  operators  sat.  To 
notice  and  remember  faces  was  fairly  an  instinct 

298 


A  SALLOW  YOUNG  MAN   W1T1I  AN  UNUSUALLY  LOX<i  rillX. 


Pttfje  299. 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


with  him.  So  he  noticed  the  operator  who  carried 
out  his  instructions — a  sallow  young  man  with  an 
unusually  long  chin. 

Later  in  the  day,  returning  to  the  King  Edward 
Hotel,  he  saw  this  same  operator  climbing  into  a 
cab.  The  vehicle  contained  another  occupant  of 
whom  Pound  had  a  sufficient  glimpse — a  swarthy, 
chubby,  jolly-looking  little  man,  whom  Pound  at 
once  recognized  as  Billy  Brewer,  formerly  a  tele- 
graph operator  in  the  employ  of  the  bucketshop, 
who  had  then  been  a  chum  of  Hamilton. 

Pound  turned  sharply  on  his  heel  to  look  after 
the  cab,  which  was  already  rolling  away.  He  saw 
the  two  men  laughing  like  people  on  very  good 

terms. 

The  incident  brought  a  vague  unrest  to  his 
mind,  because  Brewer  suggested  Hamilton,  and 
Hamilton  suggested  Emma.  It  occurred  to  him 
that  the  swarthy,  chubby,  little  telegraph  operator 
must  have  struck  oil  somewhere,  if  he  could  afford 
to  put  up  at  so  expensive  a  hotel. 

Before  leaving  on  the  evening  train  he  was 
again  reminded  of  his  former  wife.  Tommy  took 
an  early  dinner  with  him  at  the  hotel,  and  brought 
up  a  personal  matter.  He  wanted  a  six  months' 

299 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


leave  of  absence.  He  said  he  hadn't  been  well  of 
late — although  his  blue  eyes  looked  as  bright  as 
ever  and  there  was  still  a  touch  of  girlish  pink 
in  his  smooth  cheeks.  He  had  decided  to  go 
abroad  for  a  while — to  Paris,  in  fact. 

Whereat  Pound  laughed  good-naturedly.  He 
had  been  thinking  very  little  of  Emma  lately,  but 
several  times  Mrs.  Lester  had  confidentially  men- 
tioned the  receipt  of  a  letter — from  Paris.  Only 
the  week  before,  he  remembered,  Mrs.  Lester 
had  quoted  to  him  quite  a  bit  of  a  newly  arrived 
letter  from  that  capital.  May,  of  course,  was 
with  Emma,  and  that  Tommy  and  May  were 
sweethearts  had  long  been  an  open  secret  to 
Pound. 

So  he  laughed  good-naturedly.  "To  Paris,  eh 
— for  your  health!"  he  said.  Smiling,  he  lifted 
the  champagne  glass.  "Well,  here's  to  the  bride, 
with  all  my  heart,  Tommy." 

Tommy  laughed  in  an  embarrassed  way. 
"Yes,"  he  said,  "that's  the  truth.  I'm  expecting 
to  be  married."  Smiling,  with  downcast  eyes,  he 
added,  "I'll  tell  the  bride  that  you  toasted  her." 

Pound  was  quite  willing  to  meet  Tommy's  wishes. 
No  doubt  Murchison,  the  slow-going,  well-recom- 

300 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


mended  Canadian  who  had  been  Tommy's  chief 
assistant  for  some  time,  could  run  the  office  well 
enough.  But  he  wasn't  thinking  much  of  the 
future  management  of  the  office.  That  idea  of 
getting  all  he  could  out  of  the  Wymans  and  then 
quietly  departing  had  been  growing  steadily  in 
his  mind.  At  worst,  he  would  have  a  million,  and 
he  might  have  two. 

The  bucketshop  was  losing  money  steadily.  He 
was  disgusted  with  having  to  fight  all  the  time. 
Eileen,  with  her  unsatisfied  social  ambitions,  made 
it  anything  but  pleasant  at  home.  To  spend  a 
year  or  two  abroad  as  a  leisurely  millionaire 
would  be  very  pleasant,  he  thought.  Over  there 
Eileen  would  forget  that  she  was  not  received  in 
the  best  houses  of  St.  Paul. 

"We'll  arrange  it  any  way  you  like,  Tommy," 
he  said  good-naturedly.  "You  can  get  away  any 
time  after  this  Wyman  deal  is  closed." 
round,  gray  eyes  looked  thoughtfully  ahead  and 
twinkled  a  little  as  of  old.  "In  fact,  I'm  going  to 
take  a  trip  abroad  myself.  I  may  meet  you  over 
there."  He  was  thinking  that  it  would  be  rather 
amusing  if  he  should  happen  to  run  across  Emma 

in  Paris. 

301 


CHAPTER  XIV 

DRAWING  IN  THE  NET 

ARRIVING  in  St.  Paul,  Pound  spent  only  a 
few  minutes  at  the  office  and  even  those 
few  minutes  he  spent  impatiently. 
For  a  long  while  the  mere  physical  aspects  o£ 
that  establishment  had  been  a  pleasure  to  him — 
the  rosewood  counter  with  its  plate-glass  screen, 
behind  which  the  cashiers  and  book-keepers  were 
stationed;  the  bank  of  telegraph  operators  sitting 
at  their  instruments ;  the  big  blackboards ;  his  own 
sumptuous  little  den  at  the  rear.  Whenever  he 
stepped  in  and  cast  his  glance  about  he  derived 
satisfaction  from  the  view.  It  was  peculiarly  his 
own  place;  the  vantage  ground  to  which  he  had 
climbed,  on  which  he  triumphantly  fronted  the 
world.  Its  special  atmosphere,  to  which  the  in- 
cessant click  of  the  telegraph  instruments  gave  a 
dominant  note  of  tension  and  haste,  long  pleased 

him. 

302 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


But  there  was  no  more  of  that  now.  His  atti- 
tude toward  the  office  was  impatient  and  contemp- 
tuous. Already,  to  his  eager  mind,  the  big  buck- 
etshop  was  only  a  derelict;  a  sinking  hulk,  to  be 
looted  and  abandoned.  His  thoughts  ran  hotly 
forward.  He  cut  Patterson  short,  in  the  middle 
of  a  prosy,  matter-of-course  report  in  which  he 
really  had  no  interest;  went  out  and  hailed  a  cab 
and  drove  home. 

Eileen,  very  pretty  in  a  lacy  morning  gown, 
was  surprised  to  see  him,  unannounced,  at  that 
hour.  She  arose,  a  bit  dubious,  to  kiss  him  duti- 
fully; but  as  he  came  swiftly  toward  her,  she  saw 
his  sparkling  eyes,  his  smiling,  triumphant  air,  and 
brightened  at  the  prospect  of  pleasant  news. 

He  began  speaking  to  her  at  once  of  the  sub- 
ject on  his  mind— a  fine,  long  trip  to  Europe,  to 
the  Orient,  perhaps  around  the  world. 

Eileen  was  enchanted.  "Oh,  really,  Johnny? 
Really?  To  go  at  once?  Do  you  mean  it?" 
With  such  pretty  exclamations  of  delight  she  kept 
interrupting  him,  her  eyes  shining.  Again  and 
again,  as  he  assured  her  and  enlarged  upon  the 

303 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


project,  she  threw  herself  into  his  arms,  cuddling 
against  him,  exclaiming,  bubbling  endearments, 
babbling  joyously.  It  was  exactly  what  she  had 
dreamed  of!  Of  all  things  it  was  what  she  had 
most  wished!  She  had  never  even  imagined  he 
could  have  so  huge  a  treat  in  store  for  her !  The 
mass  of  estrangement  which  many  differences, 
many  bickerings,  much  dissatisfaction  on  both 
sides  had  raised  up  between  them  seemed  to  dis- 
solve. They  were  again  as  they  had  been  at 
marriage. 

So  presently,  Pound  went  a  step  further  than 
he  had  intended.  He  told  her,  very  confidentially, 
that  he  was  going  to  close  up  the  bucketshop. 
They  had  plenty  of  money;  she  didn't  like  the 
business;  why  should  they  bother  themselves  with 
it? 

This  was  the  crowning  touch.  Eileen  was 
fairly  transported.  Her  pretty  eyes  sparkled;  she 
clapped  her  hands,  dimpling  and  bubbling,  smoth- 
ering him  with  kisses. 

So,  Pound  considered  it  as  good  as  settled. 
Again  he  mentally  wrote  "Finis"  to  a  chapter  of 

3°4 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


his  life  and  turned  a  new  page.  He  began  imme- 
diately drawing  in  money  from  the  Seattle,  Chi- 
cago and  Buffalo  offices,  even  though  that  reduced 
those  offices  to  a  rather  precarious  footing.  He 
opened  a  dummy  account  on  the  bucketshop's 
books,  and  by  means  of  this  account  he  trans- 
ferred the  money  to  Eileen's  credit  at  the  Norse 
National  Bank.  He  proposed  to  get  all  he  could. 
There  was  no  use  leaving  any  more  than  was 
absolutely  necessary  for  the  creditors  of  the 
bucketshop  to  divide. 

Further,  he  abruptly  stopped  his  costly  fight 
upon  the  anti-bucketshop  bill  in  the  Legislature. 
It  was  worth  something  to  tell  the  leeches  who 
had  been  battening  upon  him  in  that  connection 
to  go  to  the  devil,  and  watch  their  crestfallen 

looks. 

One  leech,  however,  took  it  in  very  bad  part. 
This  was  Colonel  Myron  Yew,  who,  early  in  the 
contest,  had  proffered  to  Pound  his  services  as  a 
lobbyist.  The  colonel's  small  gray  eyes  twinkled 
angrily  on  either  side  of  his  inflamed  and  lumpy 

nose. 

305 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


"What's  your  game,  anyhow?"  he  demanded 
with  much  heat.  "What  you  been  up  to  all  along  ? 
What  you  trying  to  do  with  this  fellow  Ham- 
mond? D — n  me  if  I  can  see  through  it  I" 

"Hammond?  What  Hammond?  What  about 
him?"  Pound  inquired  with  perfect  innocence. 
"I  don't  know  any  Hammond." 

The  colonel  snorted  with  insulting  incredulity. 
"What  did  you  send  him  to  me  for  in  the  first 
place  if  you  didn't  mean  to  stick?  What's  he 
always  got  a  finger  in  the  pie  for?  Afraid  I 
might  hold  out  a  couple  of  dollars  on  you?" 

The  colonel,  in  short,  insisted  that  Pound  had 
employed  one  Hammond  as  a  sercet  intermediary. 
He  said  that  Hammond  had  originally  invited 
him  to  call  upon  Pound  and  proffer  his  services; 
that  from  time  to  time  Hammond  had  suggested 
various  moves  in  Pound's  interest;  that  Hammond 
had  pretended  he  was  acting  entirely  without 
Pound's  knowledge,  but  the  colonel  had  been 
shrewd  enough  to  see  at  a  glance  that  Hammond 
was  really  an  agent,  or  spy,  whom  Pound  had  em- 
ployed to  deal  with  and  watch  the  colonel. 

306 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Pound  could  make  nothing  whatever  of  this 
strange  yarn.  Certainly  he  knew  no  Hammond. 
What  did  the  man  look  like  ? 

The  colonel  snorted  again,  out  of  all  patience 
at  Pound's  persistent  duplicity.  "What  do  you 
look  like  ?  What  do  I  look  like  ?  You  don't  know 
him!  Oh,  no!  A  bony,  smooth-faced,  round- 
shouldered  man !  What's  the  need  of  your  lying 
tome?" 

At  which  Pound  not  unnaturally  lost  his  temper 
and  drove  the  irate  colonel  from  the  office. 
Thinking  it  over  afterward  he  could  make  noth- 
ing whatever  out  of  it  except  that  it  was  a  weird 
fie  on  the  colonel's  part,  invented  for  some  ob- 
scure purpose.  However,  he  dismissed  it  from 
his  mind.  The  colonel  might  betake  himself  to 
the  place  he  was  so  fond  of  mentioning;  Pound 
himself  would  soon  be  up  and  away,  leaving  the 
whole  mess  to  whoever  might  choose  to  stew  in  it. 
That  happy  consummation,  he  judged,  was  a 
matter  of  only  a  few  days.  For  his  affair  with 
the  Messrs.  Wyman  was  progressing  finely.  On 
the  Monday  following  his  return  from  Toronto 

307 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


he  received  a  telegram  from  Algernon  at  Dablon, 
Province  of  Quebec.  It  said  the  sender  had  dis- 
covered his  brother  Henry  and  was  forwarding 
by  mail  a  communication  for  which  he  begged 
Mr.  Pound's  most  friendly  and  careful  considera- 
tion. The  letter  arrived  duly,  couched  in  Alger- 
non's usual  meandering  and  circumlocutory  style. 
In  effect,  it  said  that  Algernon  had  laid  the  bucket- 
shop  proposition  before  Brother  Henry,  but 
Brother  Henry  was  somewhat  dissatisfied;  he 
thought,  in  view  of  their  wealth  and  position, 
they  were  entitled  to  more  generous  terms  than 
Mr.  Pound  had  proposed;  thought,  in  short,  that 
Mr.  Pound  ought  to  sell  them  a  half  interest  in 
the  bucketshop  instead  of  only  a  quarter  interest, 
so  they  should  have  an  equal  voice  in  the  manage- 
ment of  the  concern.  Algernon,  in  his  involved 
manner,  apologized  for  Brother  Henry;  hoped 
to  bring  him  to  a  more  reasonable  frame  of  mind. 
He  thought  it  well,  however,  to  let  Mr.  Pound 
know  how  Brother  Henry  felt.  Would  Mr. 
Pound  kindly  wire  whether  he  might  possibly  be 

brought  to  sell  more  than  a  quarter  interest? 

308 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Mr.  Pound  both  wired  and  wrote  to  Algernon 
at  Dablon.  He  himself  thought  Brother  Henry 
quite  unreasonable,  and  wouldn't  think  of  selling 
a  half  interest.  However,  for  the  sake  of  having 
associates  to  lighten  his  crushing  managerial  bur- 
dens, and  inasmuch  as  negotiations  had  gone  so- 
far,  and  in  order  to  show  his  hearty  good  will  to 
Algernon,  he  would  consent  to  sell  four  thousand 
shares  instead  of  twenty-five  hundred,  which 
would  give  the  Messrs.  Wyman  an  interest  almost 
equal  to  his  own.  He  would  even  let  them  have 
that  much  at  the  old  price  of  a  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars  a  share,  or  six  hundred  thousand  dollars 

for  the  block. 

At  this  concession  Algernon  was  pleased  in- 
deed, as  his  replies  by  wire  and  mail  abundantly 
testified.  Although  Brother  Henry  still  argued 
for  a  half  interest  Algernon  was  satisfied  he 
would  accept  Mr.  Pound's  really  handsome  offer. 
Indeed,  the  brothers  would  have  been  in  St.  Paul 
ere  the  latter  arrived,  but,  unfortunately,  Brother 
Henry  was  suffering  from  a  badly-sprained  ankl 
which  made  traveling  exceedingly  painful.  Would 

3°9 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


it  be  possible  for  Mr.  Pound  to  arrange  to  meet 
them  in  Toronto,  say,  on  two  days'  notice,  and 
close  the  deal? 

Needless  to  say,  it  would;  and  he  fervently 
hoped  the  day  would  be  soon,  for  the  game  was 
getting  hot  now,  requiring  swift  and  secret 
strokes.  Fortune  was  rather  forcing  his  hand. 
The  stock  market  was  booming,  and  the  bucket- 
shop  was  losing  money  as  through  a  sieve.  As 
Pound  had  recently  sequestrated  a  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  dollars  of  its  cash,  for  Eileen,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  old  sequestration  of  half  a 
million  which  he  held  in  the  form  of  Govern- 
ment bonds,  the  concern's  position  was  getting 
decidedly  ticklish.  A  concerted  demand  upon  it 
for  all  the  money  owing  to  customers  at  its  many 
offices  would  have  sent  it  into  bankruptcy — unless 
Pound  sustained  it  by  turning  in  Eileen's  money 
or  some  of  his  bonds,  which  he  was  resolved  not 
to  do. 

He  would  have  preferred  to  move  more 
leisurely.  He  would  have  liked  time  in  which  to 

gull  the  Wymans  out  of  the  rest  of  their  money 

310 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


and  to  get  away  without  any  appearance  of  haste. 
But  one  must  play  the  game  as  it  lay,  and  this 
game  required  dispatch. 

His  problem  was  to  gather  in  the  Wymans'  six 
hundred  thousand  dollars,  to  get  that  and  Eileen's 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  and  his  bonds  down 
to  New  York,  there  converting  the  bonds  into 
cash,  and  remit  the  whole  to  Europe,  meanwhile 
holding   the   shell   of  the  bucketshop   together. 
Then  he  and  Eileen  would  sail  before  anybody 
discovered  that  the  bucketshop  was  insolvent  or 
that  they  purposed  going.    On  the  other  side  they 
could  wait,  at  ease,  for  the  crash.    Meanwhile  it 
was  highly  expedient  to  avoid  leaving  in  the  hands 
of  the  Messrs.  Wyman  any  plain  evidence  by 
which  they  could  substantiate,  in  criminal  court,  a 
claim  of  fraudulent  misrepresentation.     Posses- 
sion was  nine  points  of  the  law,  anyway.    Three 
thousand  miles  of  salt  water  made  half  a  dozen 
points  more.    Once  snugly  in  Europe,  with  a  mil- 
lion and  a  quarter  under  his  hand-unless  he  laid 
himself  open  too  grossly-he  could  laugh  at  them. 
To  play  his  hand  prosperously  required  some 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


nerve  and  dexterity;  but  he  was  perfectly  confi- 
dent of  himself  in  both  points.  A  somewhat 
alarming  incident,  however,  intervened.  He  and 
Eileen  were  still  loverlike.  He  had  laid  in  her 
dimpled  hands  three  drafts  for  fifty  thousand  each, 
to  her  order,  drawn  on  New  York  by  the  Norse 
National  Bank,  and  made  her  a  fond  little  speech 
and  kissed  her.  Also,  he  had  prepared  her  for  an 
earlier  sailing  than  had  been  at  first  proposed. 
There  was  no  use  waiting,  he  said;  they  might  as 
well  begin  to  pack  up.  But  he  had  a  good  many 
malicious  enemies  who  were  always  looking  for 
a  chance  to  annoy  him.  He  didn't  want  them  to 
know  anything  about  his  plans.  So  she  mustn't 
mention  to  anybody  that  they  were  going  until 
he  gave  the  word. 

And  the  very  next  afternoon  he  chanced  to  meet 
Mrs.  Lester  on  the  street.  He  had  always  liked 
that  good-natured,  loquacious,  scatter-brained 
woman,  although  they  had  not  seen  much  of  each 
other  since  Eileen  began  treating  her  shabbily. 
Mrs.  Lester  was  glad  to  see  him;  mentioned  that 

she  had  received  a  letter  from  Emma,  in  Paris, 

312 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


a  fortnight  before;  mentioned  also  that  she  had 
just  encountered  Eileen  on  a  shopping  tour. 

"Going  abroad,  I  understand?"  she  added, 
good-naturedly.  "Sudden,  isn't  it?" 

Of  course,  Eileen  simply  couldn't  forbear  the 
pleasant  triumph  of  letting  Mrs.  Lester  know  that 
they  were  going  to  take  a  long,  gorgeous  trip 
around  the  world — although  she  had  been  a  little 
frightened  afterwards,  and  impressed  upon  her 
that  nothing  was  to  be  said  about  it.  And  of 
course  Mrs.  Lester  simply  couldn't  forbear  letting 
Pound  know  that  she  knew. 

Hardly  anything  could  have  been  more  danger- 
ous to  Pound,  in  that  juncture,  than  an  advertise- 
ment of  his  plans.  He  went  home  in  wrath;  and 
Eileen,  with  a  gnawing  sense  of  guilt,  was  already 
angry  with  him  for  having  put  any  such  absurd 
restrictions  upon  her.  They  had  a  bitter  quarrel. 
Eileen  wept;  demanded  to  know  what  he  was 
afraid  of  that  he  must  skulk  away  in  the  dark; 
declared  she  had  long  known  he  didn't  love  her 
anyway;  his  affections  were  still  fixed  upon  the 
vulgar  creature  to  whom  he  had  once  been  tied. 

313 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


"She  was  a  woman  of  brains,  at  any  rate," 
Pound  retorted  ruthlessly.  "Nobody  had  to  tell 
her  when  to  keep  her  mouth  shut!" 

Whereat  Eileen  ran  away  and  locked  herself  in 
her  room.  The  next  day,  however,  they  patched 
it  up  after  a  fashion.  Nothing  untoward  seemed 
to  come  from  her  indiscretion.  At  St.  Paul  things 
were  agreeably  quiet. 

At  Toronto  a  minor  misfortune  occurred. 
Tommy  Watrous  wired  that  he  had  taken  a  heavy 
cold;  could  scarcely  hold  up  his  head;  must  put 
the  management  of  the  office  temporarily  in 
Murchison's  hands.  Pound  would  have  preferred 
to  have  Tommy  on  hand.  Nevertheless,  there 
was  no  immediate  need  of  him,  and  the  news  from 
the  Wymans  was  wholly  encouraging. 

That  is,  Algernon — more  on  his  brother 
Henry's  account  than  on  his  own — forwarded 
from  Dablon  a  proposal  which  quite  played  into 
Pound's  hands.  Algernon  had  showed  Brother 
Henry  the  figures  of  the  bucketshop's  financial 
standing  as  they  had  been  disclosed  before  the 
investigating  committee  in  St.  Paul,  long  before. 

3H 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Brother  Henry  thought,  however,  there  should  be 
an  exhibit  of  the  concern's  assets  at  the  present 
time.  Algernon  suggested  that  Mr.  Pound  could 
easily  bring  his  Government  bonds  and  bank  state- 
ments down  to  Toronto,  and  exhibit  them  to  him- 
self and  his  brother  there.  At  the  same  time  he 
could  bring  along  the  certificates  for  four  thou- 
sand shares  of  stock.  Thus  the  whole  affair  could 
be  closed  up  in  an  hour,  Mr.  Pound  delivering  the 
stock  certificates  and  receiving  the  six  hundred 
thousand  dollars— of  which,  as  Algernon  re- 
minded him,  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  was 
already  lying  contingently  to  his  credit  in  the  Lon- 
don and  St.  Lawrence  Bank. 

Pound  readily  acceded  to  this  proposal.  To 
prepare  for  the  showing  of  assets  he  temporarily 
borrowed  from  Eileen  the  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand dollars  which  he  had  given  her,  and  "kited" 
it  through  two  banks  in  St.  Paul,  two  in  Chicago, 
one  in  Buffalo  and  the  London  and  St.  Lawrence 
at  Toronto,  thereby  for  the  time  being  swelling 
his  account  by  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dol- 
lars in  one  bank  after  another.  And  from  each  r 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


bank,  while  the  migratory  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand remained  in  its  hands,  he  procured  a  state- 
ment showing  the  amount  of  his  balance.  Thus, 
a  couple  of  suckers — as  he  judged  the  Messrs. 
Wyman  to  be — laying  these  six  bank  statements 
together,  would  suppose  that  the  bucketshop  had 
over  a  million  dollars  cash  in  bank. 

He  was  perfectly  willing,  also,  to  take  his  Gov- 
ernment bonds  down  to  Toronto.  They  made 
quite  a  bulky  bundle,  and  Toronto  was  nearer  to 
New  York  than  St.  Paul  was.  He  intended  to 
exhibit  the  bonds  and  the  bank  statements  to  the 
Messrs.  Wyman  in  Toronto  before  no  witnesses, 
then  drop  quietly  on  to  New  York  with  the  bonds, 
wire  Eileen  to  join  him  there,  and  take  ship  for 
Europe.  He  was  confident  of  being  able  to  slip 
the  bank  statements  in  his  pockets  and  destroy 
them  afterward.  At  worst,  it  would  be  his  word 
against  the  word  of  the  Brothers  Wyman,  and 
while  they  might  be  two  against  one,  he  thought, 
if  it  came  to  that  pinch  he  could  tell  a  more  plausi- 
ble story  before  a  jury  than  any  dozen  Wymans. 
Above  all,  he  would  have  more  than  a  million  and 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


a  quarter  of  dollars  in  his  hands — and  possession 
was  certainly  nine  points  of  the  law  as  he  knew  it. 

He  returned  to  Eileen  the  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  dollars  which  he  had  temporarily  bor- 
rowed, and  advised  her  to  have  it  transferred  to 
her  credit  in  a  New  York  bank,  where  in  a  few 
moments  she  could  convert  it  into  foreign  ex- 
change. When  the  time  came  it  would  be  advis- 
able for  them  to  move  quickly  and  without  dis- 
play. So  he  had  his  wife  forward  several  of  her 
trunks  to  New  York  by  express.  His  idea  was  to 
go  to  Toronto,  close  with  the  Messrs.  Wyman, 
then  slip  on  to  New  York  and  sail.  Making 
these  preparations  he  impatiently  awaited  decisive 
word  from  Algernon. 

That  word  came  by  letter  from  Dablon,  reach- 
ing Pound  on  Monday.  It  appointed  the  follow- 
ing Thursday  as  the  day  of  meeting  in  Toronto. 
Brother  Henry's  ankle,  Algernon  wrote,  still 
troubled  him  somewhat,  but  he  had  agreed  to 
proceed  to  Toronto  and  close  the  deal.  Algernon 
himself  was  most  anxious  that  there  should  be  no 
delay.  Henry,  in  fact,  had  committed  the  indis- 
cretion of  writing  to  a  gentleman  in  St.  Jude 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


concerning  the  transaction.  This  gentleman  was 
an  elderly  and  most  estimable  person  who  had 
been  a  business  associate  of  their  late  father;  but 
unfortunately,  his  ideas  were  disgustingly  narrow 
and  antiquated.  He  had  written  that  he  regarded 
the  Moxley  Stock  and  Grain  Company  as  a  most 
hazardous  investment.  Of  course,  the  gentleman 
didn't  know  anything  about  it,  yet  Algernon 
feared  that  he  might  possibly  succeed  in  dissuad- 
ing Henry  if  the  matter  were  allowed  to  drag. 

Picturing  the  St.  Jude  gentleman  as  some  hard- 
headed  old  merchant  or  banker,  Pound  fully 
shared  Algernon's  fears.  He  proposed  that  the 
matter  should  not  drag.  Arriving  in  Toronto 
Thursday  he  judged  that  he  would  be  able  to 
leave  on  Friday  at  latest.  Accordingly,  he  en- 
gaged passage  to  Europe  for  himself  and  wife 
on  Saturday's  boat,  telling  Eileen  that  she  should 
leave  for  New  York  on  Wednesday  evening,  and 
he  would  join  her  there  Friday.  His  quarrel  with 
Eileen  had  not  been  bootless.  Its  bitter  taste 
might  linger  in  their  mouths,  keeping  them  more 
or  less  estranged;  but  he  was  confident  that  she 
was  not  repeating  the  folly  of  blabbing. 


CHAPTER  XV 

SOME  ACCOUNTS   ARE  SQUARED 

NEITHER  Pound  nor  his  wife  left  St.  Paul 
that  week,  however. 

The  newspapers  of  Thursday  morn- 
ing had  a  sensation.  Charges  of  bribery  in  con- 
nection with  the  anti-bucketshop  bill  had  been 
made.  At  a  night  session  the  Legislature  had 
appointed  a  committee  of  investigation — as  Mr. 
Pound  was  informed  by  a  troop  of  reporters  who 
come  battering  at  the  door  of  his  handsome  res- 
idence about  midnight.  They  seemed  to  take  it 
for  granted  that  this  bribery  scandal  intimately 
concerned  Mr.  Pound. 

The  two  newspapers  that  had  been  especially 
devoted  to  the  cause  of  the  "regular"  brokers 
in  the  fight  against  the  bucketshop  naturally  took 
the  same  kindly  view.  Both  of  them  mentioned 
conspicuously  that,  according  to  common  report, 
Pound's  bucketshop  had  been  losing  money  at  an 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


enormous  rate  of  late;  gossip  concerning  its 
solvency  had  been  heard.  And  the  most  bitter 
of  them  added,  casually,  that  a  remarkable  wom- 
an— the  first  Mrs.  Pound — had  borne  a  chief 
share  in  raising  that  concern  to  its  former  flour- 
ishing state;  when  she  had  been  eliminated  by 
divorce,  it  said,  one  of  Mr.  Pound's  sporty  friends 
had  offered  to  bet  a  hundred  even  that  the  insti- 
tution wouldn't  last  two  years. 

This  scandal  had  a  very  unhappy  effect  upon 
Eileen.  It  gave  new  edge  to  all  her  social  dis- 
appointment. She  had  been  dreaming  that,  with 
the  bucketshop  neatly  buried  and  after  a  year 
abroad — which  might  unfold  many  opportunities 
for  desirable  acquaintance — the  coveted  position 
would  be  open  to  her.  And  here  was  the  detesta- 
ble bucketshop  getting  up  out  of  its  coffin,  one 
might  say,  and  fastening  its  slimy  hands  upon 
her  in  public.  It  reminded  her  keenly,  how  irreg- 
ular, outlawed  and  ineligible  was  the  person  she 
was  married  to.  At  moments  she  utterly  despaired 
of  Johnny.  And  naturally  that  reference  to  Emma 
as  the  real  architect  of  her  husband's  fortune 
grievously  wounded  her.  She  had  always  been 

320 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


aware  of  Emma's  practical  competence,  and  hated 
her  for  it;  and  here  it  was  publicly  thrown  in  her 
face.  She  asked  her  husband,  wretchedly,  why  he 
didn't  go  back  to  Emma  and  be  done  with  it. 

This  was  disagreeable  enough ;  but  Pound  had 
far  more  than  Eileen's  low  spirits  to  think  about. 
The  attack  put  him  in  black  humor.  He  attribu- 
ted it  at  once  to  his  old  enemies  the  "regulars." 
Indeed,  he  discovered  from  the  reporters  who 
routed  him  out  of  bed  that  Benjamin  F.  Totherow 
had  been  taking  a  guiding  hand  in  it.  This  was 
one  more  time,  then,  when  the  "regulars"  had 
struck  him  in  the  shrewdest  way  at  exactly  the 
most  inopportune  moment.  Again  he  felt  that 
deep  sense  of  insecurity — a  vague,  sickening  pre- 
monition of  defeat.  This  attack  reminded  him 
again  that  in  spite  of  his  money  he  was  essentially 
an  outlaw.  Otherwise  the  papers  would  not  dare 
print  such  things  about  him.  Well,  if  he  was  an 
outlaw  let  them  look  out  for  him ! 

Bright  and  early  Tuesday  morning  he  was 
served  with  a  subpoena  to  appear  before  the  Legis- 
lature's investigating  committee  at  ten  o'clock 
Thursday  morning.  To  disobey  the  subpcena 

321 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


would  be  to  invite  arrest  and  bring  down  upon 
himself  a  greater  uproar  than  ever.     Naturally, 
therefore,  it  would  be  impossible  for  him  to  ap-' 
pear  in  Toronto  on  the  appointed  day. 

Also,  the  far-spread  nervous  system  of  his 
bucketshop  began  at  once  to  show  the  depressing 
effect  of  this  blow.  Here  and  there,  all  along  his 
thousands  of  miles  of  private  wire,  one  customer 
and  another  was  seized  with  doubt,  closed  his 
account,  drew  out  his  money.  This  withdrawing 
movement  was  quiet  enough,  yet  its  effect  was  as 
though  a  hundred  little  leaks  had  opened  in  a 
ship  that  was  barely  keeping  afloat.  At  this  rate, 
to  keep  it  afloat  long  was  out  of  the  question.  He 
must  move  fast  if  he  expected  to  get  away  before 
it  foundered.  Doggedly,  and  cursing  the  luck,  he 
meant  still  to  win. 

There  was  one  cheering  fact.  The  Messrs. 
Wyman,  in  their  remote  Canadian  village,  would 
hardly  hear  of  this  uproar  in  St.  Paul.  It  was 
obviously  to  his  advantage  that  they  should  not 
hear  of  it.  The  scandal  could  hardly  increase 
even  Algernon's  eagerness  to  buy  an  interest  in 
the  bucketshop,  while  it  would  certainly  give  the 

322 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


conservative  St.  Jude  gentleman  greater  reason 
than  ever  to  dissuade  the  less  eager  Henry.  But 
that  the  brothers  could  remain  long  in  Toronto 
without  hearing  the  news  from  St.  Paul  was  out 
of  the  question.  The  bucketshop  was  even  then 
insolvent.  A  smart  touch  at  any  point  would 
break  it.  He  could  not  hope  to  hold  the  shell 
together  many  days  without  turning  back  some  of 
the  money  he  had  sequestrated— which  he  was 
resolved  not  to  do.  He  must  move  fast. 

He  could  choose  one  of  two  courses.  He  could 
postpone  the  meeting  with  the  Messrs.  Wyman 
—taking  the  risk  that  they  would  shy  off— or  he 
could  trust  a  bit  to  his  star.  Tuesday  afternoon 
he  received  a  telegram  from  Algernon.  It  said 
the  brothers  were  preparing  to  leave  for  Toronto, 
where  they  would  certainly  meet  Mr.  Pound  on 
Thursday  and  close  the  deal.  Algernon  hoped 
Mr.  Pound  would  let  nothing  interfere  with  meet- 
ing  them.  Their  father's  friend,  he  added,  had 
asked  Henry,  by  wire,  to  come  to  St.  Jude  and 
have  a  talk  with  him;  but  Henry  still  held  to  his 
purpose  of  proceeding  straight  to  Toronto  and 

closing  the  deal. 

323 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


This  message  confirmed  Pound's  resolution  to 
trust  a  little  to  his  star.  He  was  already  aware 
that  Tommy  Watrous  had  taken  to  his  bed,  leav- 
ing the  Toronto  office  in  charge  of  Murchison, 
the  Canadian.  Without  entertaining  any  high 
idea  of  Murchison's  mental  qualities  Pound  had 
no  doubt  whatever  of  his  honesty. 

On  Tuesday  afternoon,  therefore,  Pound  with- 
drew his  bonds  from  the  safe-deposit  vault  and 
made  them  into  a  neat  bundle,  in  which  he  en- 
closed the  flattering  but  very  misleading  bank 
statements  that  he  had  prepared  for  the  entertain- 
ment of  the  Messrs.  Wyman,  and  certificates  for 
four  thousand  shares  of  stock  in  the  bucketshop. 
This  bundle  he  forwarded  by  express  to  the  Lon- 
don and  St.  Lawrence  Bank,  with  instructions  that 
it  was  to  be  held  subject  to  his  own  orders  or  to 
such  orders  as  Mr.  Murchison  might  give  in  his 
name.  To  Murchison  he  wrote  a  careful  letter 
of  instruction  to  the  effect  that  when  the  Messrs. 
Wyman  appeared  on  Thursday  he  was  to  take 
them  over  to  the  bank,  exhibit  to  them  the  bonds 
and  the  bank  statements,  and  then  deliver  to  them 
the  certificates  for  four  thousand  shares  of  stock, 

324 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


provided  the  brothers  at  the  same  time  deposited 
to  Pound's  credit  in  the  London  and  St.  Lawrence 
Bank  the  sum  of  six  hundred  thousand  dollars. 

Also,  he  forwarded  in  Murchison's  care  a  letter 
for  Algernon,  expressing  his  grief  at  being  unable 
to  appear  in  person  and  assuring  Algernon  that 
the  deal  might  be  concluded  through  Mr.  Mur- 
chison  exactly  as  well  as  with  himself  in  person. 
Some  disappointed  competitors,  he  explained,  had 
had  the  audacity  to  link  his  name  with  a  dirty 
political  scandal  of  which  he  was  entirely  innocent. 
This  so  incensed  him  that  he  had  resolved  to  post- 
pone every  other  matter,  even  the  weightiest 
affairs  of  business,  until  he  had  overwhelmed  his 
detractors. 

This,  on  the  whole,  seemed  to  him  decidedly 
his  best  move.  If  he  were  at  all  lucky  the  deal 
would  be  closed  on  Thursday,  just  as  originally 
planned.  He  had  been  careful  to  tell  Murchison 
to  put  the  bank  statements  back  in  the  bundle  with 
the  bonds,  returning  the  whole  to  the  vaults  of  the 
bank.  But  even  if  Murchison  bungled  this,  or 
even  if  the  manager,  later  on,  should  testify  in 
behalf  of  the  Messrs.  Wyman— well,  he  would 

325 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


have  the  money ;  possession  was  nine  points  of  the 
law,  and  his  wits  were  far  better  than  theirs.  If' 
the  Wymans  demurred  to  closing  the  deal  with 
Murchison — well,  he  could  only  trust  to  luck. 
Probably  he  could  keep  them  on  the  hook  a  couple 
of  days  longer  and  get  down  to  Toronto  himself. 
It  was  part  of  the  ill  luck  that  Tommy  Watrous 
was  incapacitated — threatened  with  pneumonia, 
it  seemed.  But  Murchison  was  seeing  Tommy  in 
his  room  at  the  hotel  daily ;  Tommy  at  least  could 
advise  him. 

Wednesday  there  was  nothing  in  particular  to 
do  but  wait  for  the  morrow.  It  was  a  nerve- 
trying  day.  He  had  this  bribery  mess  to  think 
about,  and  the  best  information  he  could  get  gave 
it  an  unpleasant  look.  His  scouts  brought  in 
reports  concerning  Colonel  Myron  Yew.  Tothe- 
row  and  the  reformers,  it  seemed,  were  courting 
that  distinguished  barrister ;  might  get  him  to  turn 
state's  evidence.  There  was  one  rather  puzzling 
and  disturbing  factor — namely,  that  yarn  the 
colonel  had  told  him  about  a  go-between,  or  spy, 
a  fellow  named  Hammond.  What  might  that 
yarn  signify?  Also,  there  was  Toronto  to  think' 

326 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


about.  Again  and  again  he  fairly  saw  the  Messrs. 
Wyman  drawing  toward  that  city.  What  would 
happen  there?  Would  they  take  his  bait?  He 
"yearned  mightily  to  fly  thither  himself.  He  felt 
— with  now  and  again  that  subtle  little  quailing  in 
his  vitals — how  completely  alone  he  stood;  single- 
handed  against  many  foes. 

But  Thursday  began  promisingly.  By  nine 
o'clock  Murchison  wired  that  he  had  been  over 
to  the  bank  and  made  arrangements  for  the  use  of 
a  parlor,  in  which  to  exhibit  the  bonds,  and  so  on, 
to  the  Messrs.  Wyman.  He  understood  just  what 
he  was  to  do,  and  only  waited  for  word  from  the 
brothers.  Twenty  minutes  later  he  wired  again. 
Algernon  had  just  telephoned  from  the  hotel ;  was 
disappointed  to  hear  that  Mr.  Pound  could  not 
be  present,  but  had  raised  no  objection  to  dealing 
with  Mr.  Murchison;  said  Brother  Henry's  ankle 
was  better,  but  he  was  waiting  to  have  a  compe- 
tent physician  examine  it;  proposed  that  himself 
and  brother  should  drive  around  to  the  office 
within  an  hour.  Murchison  added  that  he  would 
at  once  give  them  Mr.  Pound's  letter  and  take 
them  over  to  the  bank. 

327 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


That  was  all — encouraging  as  far  as  it  went, 
yet  leaving  Pound  to  a  disagreeable  suspense.  He 
could  wait  for  no  further  word,  as  he  was  to 
appear  before  the  investigating  committee  at  ten 
o'clock. 

The  hearing  really  amounted  to  nothing.  He 
was  called  in,  asked  some  questions  of  a  general 
sort,  then  temporarily  excused  and  made  to  sit  in 
a  guarded  anteroom  for  two  hours.  He  had  a 
rather  unpleasant  experience  there.  Mr.  Benja- 
min F.  Totherow  passed  through  the  anteroom 
and  went  in  to  the  committee.  Pound  had  known 
well  enough  that  Mr.  Totherow,  chief  counsel  for 
his  enemies,  the  "regular"  commission  houses,  was 
doing  his  best  to  egg  on  this  investigation,  which 
was  obviously  aimed  at  the  bucketshop.  Yet  evi- 
dence that  Mr.  Totherow  was  on  such  familiar 
terms  with  the  committee  was  unpleasant,  and  he 
hated  to  have  the  lawyer  grin  down  at  him  in  that 
supercilious,  sarcastic  and  triumphant  manner  as 
he  sat,  fairly  like  a  prisoner,  in  the  anteroom. 

Soon  after  twelve  he  was  again  called  before 
the  committee,  questioned  in  a  general  way,  and 
then  more  particularly  as  to  his  relations  with 

328 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Colonel  Myron  Yew.  He  replied  that  he  had 
employed  Colonel  Yew,  off  and  on,  to  look  after 
various  legal  matters;  had  paid  him  for  his  ser- 
vices from  time  to  time;  certainly  had  not  em- 
ployed him  to  bribe  anybody;  couldn't  remember 
dates  and  amounts.  During  this  examination 
Totherow  came  in,  sitting  by  like  a  sarcastic  hawk. 
Again  Pound  was  relegated  to  the  anteroom. 
There  he  found  a  boy  from  the  office  awaiting 
him  with  a  telegram  from  Murchison.  It  said 
simply:  "Deal  closed;  money  deposited." 

Glancing  at  those  four  words  Pound's  heart 
grew  light  and  warm.  He  folded  the  dispatch 
and  put  it  in  his  pocket,  a  deep  content  possessing 
him.  When  Totherow  strode  through  the  apart- 
ment an  hour  later  Pound  looked  up  at  him  with 
a  broad  smile.  They  might  all  go  to  the  devil! 
He  had  beaten  them  out ! 

He  accepted  his  enforced  wait  in  the  anteroom 
with  good  nature.  The  task  before  him  now  was 
the  comparatively  simple  one  of  gathering  in  his 
money,  slipping  down  to  New  York  and  fading 
away.  A  task  so  relatively  light  amused  his  mind. 
Thinking  how  he  would  do  it  from  time  to  time 

329 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


he  smiled  a  little,  fairly  losing  track  of  the  hour. 
It  was,  in  fact,  nearly  five  o'clock  when  he  was 
released — with  an  injunction  to  come  back  next 
morning  at  ten  and  conclude  his  testimony.  He 
was  already  satisfied  that  the  committe  had  no 
definite  information,  but  was  merely  on  a  general 
fishing  expedition. 

He  hastened  to  the  office  and  found  a  fuller 
report  from  Murchison.  The  stock  had  been 
duly  delivered,  it  said,  and  six  hundred  thousand 
dollars  deposited  to  his  credit  in  the  London  and 
St.  Lawrence  Bank.  He  found,  also,  a  telegram 
from  Algernon,  in  which  that  gentleman  congrat- 
ulated himself  and  his  brother  upon  the  happy 
conclusion  of  their  deal  with  Mr.  Pound.  They 
had  hoped  to  come  on  to  St.  Paul  at  once,  but 
Brother  Henry  had  a  little  business  in  Chicago. 
They  would  spend  a  day  or  two  in  that  city. 
Pound  resolved  at  once  to  intercept  them  there, 
appointing  a  meeting  on  the  following  Tuesday. 
From  Chicago  he  could  go  to  Toronto,  gathering 
up  his  bonds  and  money,  thence  to  New  York. 

Friday  forenoon  Pound  again  appeared  before 
the  investigating  committee — in  a  long  game  of 

330 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


battledore  and  shuttlecock.  Over  and  over  they 
asked  him  about  the  money  he  had  paid  Colonel 
Myron  Yew,  but  he  could  remember  nothing 
definitely.  He  concluded,  in  fact,  that  the  com- 
mittee itself  knew  nothing  definitely.  The  hearing 
dragged  on  with  two  or  three  intermissions  until 
after  three  o'clock. 

He  had  hardly  reentered  the  office  before  a 
telegram  came  from  Algernon  at  the  Annex  in 
Chicago.  The  brothers  intended  leaving  for  St. 
Paul  on  Monday.  Pound  wired  back  that  busi- 
ness called  him  to  Chicago ;  he  would  meet  them 
there  Tuesday.  Some  incidental  conversation 
relative  to  the  closed  deal  passed  between  himself 
and  Murchison  over  the  private  wire.  Going 
home  Pound  told  Eileen  that  he  would  leave  for 
Chicago  Monday  evening ;  she  would  meet  him  in 
New  York  Thursday;  they  would  sail  Friday. 

He  had  exactly  a  million  and  a  quarter,  besides 
the  residence.  Very  likely,  when  the  crash  came  the 
creditors  of  the  bucket  shop  would  try  to  get  the 
house;  but  it  had  been  in  Eileen's  name  from 
the  first;  he  doubted  that  they  could  hold  it.  And 
even  if  they  could  hold  it,  they  were  welcome  to 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


it!  The  bucketshop,  after  all,  had  considerable 
credit.  He  judged  that  it  would  stand  up  ten 
days  or  a  fortnight — long  enough  for  his  pur- 
poses. Once  he  was  safely  on  the  other  side  of 
the  water,  with  his  million  and  a  quarter,  let  any- 
body who  liked  try  to  dispossess  him. 

A  million  and  a  quarter!  The  sense  of  victory 
was  all  the  stronger  and  sweeter  because  he  had 
to  fight  so  hard  for  it — and  all  alone ! 

Saturday  he  chanced  to  pass  Benjamin  F.  Toth- 
erow  at  the  entrance  of  the  Norse  National  Bank, 
and  it  required  an  effort  to  keep  from  grinning 
in  that  eminent  person's  face.  A  week  hence,  how 
like  an  ass  Totherow  and  all  the  rest  of  them 
would  be  looking!  Saturday  was  an  exceedingly 
busy  day.  Naturally  there  were  a  lot  of  little 
things  to  be  arranged.  Pound  addressed  himself 
to  them  with  feverish  activity.  He  was  in  the 
office  only  twice  during  the  forenoon,  and  then  for 
only  a  few  minutes  at  a  time.  At  noon  the  estab- 
lishment closed  for  the  day.  It  was  well  toward 
dinner  time  when  he  got  home. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "I've  got  things  about  wound 
up  now.  I'm  practically  a  gentleman  of  leisure ! 

332 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


How  do  you  think  you're  going  to  like  that?" 
He  spoke  jocularly,  smiling.  He  wished  Eileen 
to  forget  their  differences,  as  he  proposed  to  for- 
get them. 

"I  think  I'm  going  to  like  it,  Johnny,"  she  re- 
plied, rather  humbly,  yet  smiling  a  little.  Eileen 
in  fact,  still  had  some  mental  reservations.  She 
couldn't  understand  why  they  must  keep  their 
going  a  secret  right  up  to  the  last.  Or,  rather,  the 
last  few  days— especially  since  this  bribery  scan- 
dal—she had  begun  to  have  glimmerings  of  an 
understanding  that  half  frightened  her.  She  had 
begun  to  suspect  that  her  husband  had  excellent 
reasons  for  going  secretly;  to  imagine  that  he  was 
on  the  shady  side  of  the  law.  To  imagine  her 
husband  on  the  shady  side  of  the  law  was  just 
like  imagining  herself  caught  at  an  evening  party 
in  a  calico  wrapper,  or  addressed  coarsely  in  a 
public  place  by  some  rowdy.  It  was  a  vulgar, 
scandalous  thing. 

Nevertheless,  she  cheered  up  at  dinner  when 
he  told  her  that  he  had  engaged  a  suite  on  a  crack 
ship  for  their  passage.  And  Sunday  morning  they 
spent  together  in  a  fairly  loverlike  way.  They 

333 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


played  at  a  game  which  in  other  days  had  some- 
times amused  himself  and  Emma.  That  is,  they 
got  down  an  atlas  and  looked  up  places  where 
they  might  go.  In  the  afternoon,  it  being  a  clear, 
fine  winter  day,  they  went  for  a  sleighride.  Both 
seemed  quite  content ;  they  gossiped  now  and  then 
in  pleasant  anticipation  of  their  journey. 

Pound  himself  was  content  this  Sunday  after- 
noon. A  dear  sense  of  security  and  ease  de- 
scended upon  him.  The  fight  was  over ;  the  stake 
won.  He  glanced  about  him  with  a  satisfying 
feeling  that  he  was  taking  his  last  look — at  least 
for  a  long  while— at  this  familiar  scene  where  he 
had  had  so  many  conflicts,  so  many  pains,  and  where 
he  had  finally  triumphed.  It  was  really  very  much 
like  looking  out  over  his  past  life  and  saying  good- 
by  to  it.  He  had  come  here  with  nothing,  only  a 
telegraph  operator.  .  .  .  What  a  fight  it  had 
been!  He  lost  himself  in  thought;  replied  ab- 
sently to  his  wife. 

They  happened  to  drive  past  the  Cleopatra. 
In  his  abstraction  he  glanced  up  at  the  windows 
of  the  swell  apartment  which  he  and  Emma  had 
occupied — and  smiled  a  little,  involuntarily,  with 

334 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


a  vague  touch  of  pain.  A  good,  stout  partner,  at 
any  rate,  she  had  been!  .  .  .  He  wondered  if 
he  would  really  happen  to  run  across  her  in 
Paris.  The  thought  made  him  smile  more.  .  .  . 

A  movement  on  Eileen's  part  attracted  his  at- 
tention. He  looked  around  and  was  astonished 
to  see  that  she  was  staring  stonily  ahead,  her  lips 
compressed.  She  looked  as  though  some  one 
had  injured  her  deeply.  For  a  moment  he  was 
at  a  loss.  Then  it  came  to  him  that  she  had  seen 
him  smiling  up  at  the  windows  of  the  swell  apart- 
ment. It  made  him,  for  a  moment,  feel  quite 
hopeless.  The  silly  child  will  always  be  just  like 
this !  he  thought,  with  a  kind  of  despair.  Then 
he  began  talking  to  her  about  their  trip,  cheer- 
fully; but  she  remained  downcast.  Whatever 
happened,  this,  he  could  see,  was  going  to  be  the 
fly  in  his  ointment.  He  gave  over  trying  to  woo 
her.  They  rode  home  in  silence. 

Their  rather  useless  butler  opened  the  door  for 
them.  A  gentleman  had  called  to  see  Mr.  Pound, 
he  said,  and  insisted  upon  waiting.  The  gentle- 
man said  he  was  an  old  friend  of  Mr.  Pound. 
The  butler's  manner  seemed  to  convey  doubts- 

335 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


either  of  the  gentleman,  or  of  the  gentleman's  old 
friend.  Pound  just  had  time  to  wonder  who  this 
caller  might  be,  when  he  stepped  in,  unbidden, 
from  the  little  reception  room  off  the  hall. 

It  was  Hamilton,  looking  seedy  and  without 
the  bushy,  red  mustache  which  had  once  distin- 
guished him.  A  faded  overcoat  dangled,  unbut- 
toned, about  his  lank,  round-shouldered  form;  in 
one  bony  hand  he  carried  a  battered  derby  hat. 
Upon  this  shabby  and  mustacheless  ghost  of  the 
past  Pound  gazed  with  blank  surprise.  Eileen 
gave  one  frigid  glance  at  him,  without  the  faint- 
est gleam  of  recognition,  and  proceeded  to  divest 
herself  of  her  wraps  with  an  icy  aloofness  that 
would  have  embarrassed  a  gorilla. 

"Well,  Johnny,"  Hamilton  began  in  an  apolo- 
getical  way,  "I  thought  I'd  call.  I  suppose — that 
is,  I  guess — you've  had  some  word  about  me." 
He  brought  it  out  with  difficulty,  profoundly  em- 
barrassed, glancing  uneasily  at  Eileen.  As  Pound 
still  looked  blank  he  seemed  dashed.  Shifting  his 
weight  to  the  other  foot  and  fumbling  with  his 
hat,  he  stumbled  on,  much  embarrassed.  "Why, 
I  supposed — in  fact,  I  had  a  talk  with  Emma  the 

336 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


other  day."  He  blurted  it  out,  fairly  falling  over 
himself  in  embarrassment. 

At  the  name  of  Pound's  former  wife,  Eileen, 
so  to  speak,  froze  over  again  into  rapt  attention. 
The  effect  upon  Pound  himself  was  scarcely  less 
marked. 

Fumbling  with  his  hat  and  thumbing  the  lip 
where  once  the  red  mustache  had  luxuriated, 
Hamilton  mentioned  that  he  had  been  in  very 
hard  luck;  finally,  through  his  old  friend  Billy 
Brewer,  had  managed  to  reach  Toronto,  where 
Billy  was. 

"I  got  in  there  Saturday,  Johnny,"  the  afflicted 
man  rambled  on  awkwardly,  "Saturday  two  weeks 
ago  yesterday,  and  I  pretty  near  run  into  you 
right  there  in  the  office.  You  were  talking  to 
Tommy  Watrous  and  Murchison  just  as  I  was 
about  to  go  in." 

This  detail  seemed  merely  a  part  of  the  ram- 
bling. Pound,  however,  was  aware  of  a  slight 
stir  on  Eileen's  part.  He  recalled  vaguely  that 
upon  the  occasion  mentioned  he  had  told  her  he 
was  in  Chicago  instead  of  Toronto. 

"Well,  I  ducked,"  Hamilton  continued;  "didn't 
337 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


have  the  nerve  to  go  up  and  speak  to  you.  Then 
I  got  to  thinking  it  over,  and  I  thought,  'It 
wouldn't  do  any  harm  to  try,'  being  plumb  on 
my  uppers.  So,  next  Monday  I  started  for  the 
office  again,  and  right  there  by  the  office  door  who 
should  I  see  but  Emma,  just  going  in." 

"I  supposed,"  Pound  observed  stupidly,  "that 
she  was  in  Paris."  He  felt  that  an  explosion  was 
about  to  happen,  against  which  he  was  powerless. 

Hamilton  looked  at  him  in  open — perhaps  in 
reproachful — surprise.  "Oh,  no,"  he  said.  "She's 
been  living  in  Toronto  for  some  time,  she  tells 
me — she  and  her  sister  May.  Well,  I  got  to  talk- 
ing to  her  and  she  says,  'Go  see  Johnny,  Ham. 
Go  see  him.  He  may  have  made  his  mistakes, 
like  anybody  else,  but  his  heart  is  in  the  right 
place  for  his  old  friends.'  Well — I  talked  to  her. 
several  times,  and  the  long  and  short  of  it  is  I 
came  to  see  you.  I  thought,"  he  added  disap- 
pointedly, "she'd  said  something  to  you  about  it." 

All  Pound  could  say  was,  stupidly:  "Do  you 
know  what  she's  doing?" 

"Well,  sir,"  Hamilton  replied  with  a  kind  of 
philosophical  relish,  "there's  a  woman  1  Who 

338 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


can  tell  what  she's  up  to  ?  Billy  Brewer  was  telling 
me  that  she  got  pinched  right  there  in  Toronto  a 
while  ago.    And  who  could  have  guessed  what  it 
was  about?    Seems  she  went  to  the  public  library 
and  got  a  file  of  some  newspaper  that's  published 
in  one  of  those  Canadian  towns."    He  reflected. 
"St.  Jude— I  believe  Billy  said  it  was  a  paper  pub- 
lished in  St.  Jude.    She  got  the  file  and  took  it 
over  to  a  desk  and  pretty  soon  somebody  saw  her 
cutting  something  out  of  it— about  a  column  of 
stuff.     Of  course  they  pinched  her,  and  she  said 
in  court  that  she  was  weakminded  by  spells  and 
didn't  know  what  she  was  doing."     Hamilton 
laughed  with  melancholy  humor.    "Catch  Emma 
not  knowing  what  she's  doing!     She  got  away 
with  the  piece  she  cut  out  of  the  paper,  too; 
nobody  could  find  it.     Seems  it  was  something 
about  two  young  fellows  at  St.  Jude  contesting 
their  father's  will  and  coming  into  a  fortune, 
suppose  she  had  some  con  game  in  mind,  but  Billy 
says  he  never  heard  how  it  came  out." 

For  a  minute  there  was  dead  silence,  while 
Hamilton  gazed  at  the  polished  floor.  Then  he 
looked  up  at  Pound  apologetically. 

339 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Johnny,  as  I  was  going  to  say "  he  began. 

But  Pound  was  already  consulting  his  watch. 
"Excuse  me,"  he  murmured  absently,  and  started 
hastily  for  the  stairs. 

Hamilton  seemed  embarrassed  as  Pound 
rapidly  disappeared  up  the  stairs,  leaving  him  to 
face  Eileen. 

"Nice  house  you  got  here,  Mrs.  Pound,"  he 
ventured  propitiatingly,  with  an  admiring  glance 
around  the  hall.  "Mighty  swell  house,  I  should 
say.  I — well,  so  long,  Mrs.  Pound,"  he  con- 
cluded lamely,  for  Eileen  was  glaring  at  him  and 
impatiently  tapping  her  foot  upon  the  floor.  "So 
long,"  he  repeated,  gallantly  but  awkwardly  wav- 
ing his  faded  hat  at  her  in  adieu.  That  was  the 
last  either  of  them  could  remember  seeing  of  him. 

A  moment  later  Eileen  burst  into  Pound's  room 
and  discovered  him  throwing  things  into  a  suit- 
case. She  shut  the  door  behind  her  and  faced 
him,  panting.  "You're  going  to  Toronto  1"  she 
cried. 

To  Pound,  half  distracted  with  anxiety,  that 
statement  seemed  superfluous.  "Huh?  To 
Toronto?  Of  course  I'm  going  to  Toronto,"  he 

340 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


exclaimed,  diving  into  the  bathroom  for  toilet 
articles. 

Eileen  was  hot  upon  his  heels.  "You're  going 
to  meet  that  woman  1  You've  been  going  there  to 
meet  her  before!  You've  been  lying  to  me! 
She's  been  writing  to  you !" 

She  clamored  at  him  distractedly,  furious  with 
jealousy.  "You  put  that  thing  in  the  newspapers 
yourself!"  she  averred.  Almost  as  distracted, 
Pound  clamored  back.  It  was  business,  business, 
business!  He  had  to  go!  He  must  catch  the 
train!  They  would  be  ruined!  Get  out  of  the 
way!  So  he  bawled  at  her.  Wretch!  Deceiver! 
Libertine!  A  shameless  woman!  An  adven- 
turess! A  jade!  So  she  screamed  upon  his  track. 
In  a  fury,  as  he  rudely  shoved  her  aside,  she 
seized  the  suitcase,  flung  it  half  the  length  of  the 
room,  scattering  its  contents,  darted  to  the  door 
and  locked  it. 

At  best  he  had  barely  time  to  catch  the  train. 
This  was  maddening.  "Emma  was  right!"  he 
shouted.  "She  was  right!  You're  a  fool!  A 
fool !"  He  caught  her,  rudely  tore  the  key  from 
her  hand,  wrenched  open  the  door  and  fled, 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


shouting:  "She  was  right!  You're  a  fool!" 
This  was  Sunday  afternoon.  On  Monday 
morning,  quite  as  though  he  had  been  mysteri- 
ously informed,  the  eminent  attorney,  Benjamin 
F.  Totherow,  called  upon  Mrs.  Pound — to  learn, 
adroitly  and  sympathetically,  whether  Pound,  to 
absconding  and  manifold  other  crimes,  had  not 
added  the  crowning  infamy  of  betraying  a  gentle 
lady.  Mr.  Totherow  soon  had  Eileen  copiously 
flowing  with  tears  and  information.  She  con- 
fessed that  Pound  was  winding  up  the  bucketshop ; 
meant  to  go  abroad ;  she  even  committed  the  folly 
of  mentioning  the  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
dollars  which  he  had  given  her — doubtless  mean- 
ing to  cast  her  off  with  that. 

Pound,  meanwhile,  was  drawing  on  to  Toronto. 
From  the  train  he  dispatched  a  telegram  to  the 
postmaster  at  St.  Jude.  He  was  quite  prepared 
for  the  answer  that  came — which  was  that  the 
Messrs.  Wyman  had  taken  up  their  residence  in 
England  immediately  upon  the  settlement  of  their 
father's  estate  and  had  not  been  in  Canada  since, 
so  far  as  the  postmaster  knew. 

Now  that  a  clew  was  in  his  hands  it  was  easy 
342 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


to  see  how  Emma  could  have  been  writing  letters, 
at  Toronto,  to  good-natured,  loquacious  Mrs. 
Lester  and  forwarding  them  to  some  agent  in 
Paris  to  be  mailed  there.  It  was  easy  to  see  how 
anybody  might  have  been  sending  him  letters  and 
telegrams  signed  A.  G.  Wyman;  how  the  whole 
fiction  of  Algernon  and  his  brother  could  have 
been  created  and  palmed  off  upon  him,  and  how 
he,  in  his  credulous  eagerness  for  the  money,  had 
swallowed  it  whole. 

It  was  painfully  clear  to  him  that  as  to  what 
had  actually  happened  in  Toronto  since  Thursday 
morning  he  had  no  information  whatever  except 
the  communications  which  had  passed  between 
himself  and  Murchison  over  the  private  wire. 
And  Emma  knew  as  much  about  the  art  of  wire- 
tapping  as  he  himself  did.  How  simple  it  would 
have  been  for  them  to  tap  the  wire,  sending  him 
bogus  messages  in  Murchison's  name,  and  Mur- 
chison bogus  messages  in  his  name,  meanwhile 
intercepting  the  genuine  messages. 

Indeed,  the  whole  plot  unfolded  before  him  a 
one  magic  word-Emma!     How  differently  he 
would  have  acted  if  he  had  known  that  she  was  11 

343 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


Toronto!  That  sense  of  impending  defeat;  that 
little  quailing  of  his  vitals — in  that,  it  seemed  to 
him  now,  he  had  subtly  felt  the  touch  of  his 
former  wife's  deft,  hostile  hand. 

It  seemed  clear  that  Tommy  Watrous  must 
have  been  more  or  less  in  the  plot — but  how 
much?  There  was  a  crucial  question.  If  Emma 
had  bribed  Tommy,  he  might  now  outbribe  her. 
The  confederates  could  hardly  be  expecting  him. 
By  a  sudden  descent  upon  them  he  might  surprise 
them  with  the  loot  in  their  hands  and  make  them 
give  it  up. 

'At  Toronto  he  hastened  to  the  London  and 
St.  Lawrence  Bank.  An  official,  albeit  evidently 
surprised  at  Mr.  Pound's  questions,  answered 
courteously.  Mr.  Murchison  had  taken  out  the 
express  package  which  Mr.  Pound  had  for- 
warded. The  official  was  rather  under  the  im- 
pression that  Mr.  Murchison  had  turned  the  pack- 
age over  to  Mr.  Wyman,  who  had  accompanied 
him  to  the  bank  at  the  time ;  seemed  to  remember 
that  Mr.  Wyman  had  carried  the  package  out  in 
his  bag.  It  was  the  same  Mr.  Wyman  who  had 
once  deposited  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dol- 

344 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


lars  in  the  bank  in  connection  with  some  pending 
stock  deal.  Oh,  yes,  Mr.  Wyman  had  withdrawn 
his  hundred  and  fifty  thousand;  in  fact,  had  closed 
his  account  with  the  bank  some  days  before. 

Pound  counted  in  his  mind — Thursday,  Friday, 
Saturday,  Sunday.  They  had  his  bonds  and  four 
days'  start.  He  was  turning  away  when  a  fur- 
ther point  occurred  to  him.  This  Mr.  Wyman— 
what  did  he  look  like  ? 

The  official  described  him  as  a  short,  thick-set, 

youngish  man quite  fat,  indeed;  swarthy,  very 

jolly-looking.  Pound  at  once  recognized  Billy 
Brewer,  Hamilton's  old  pal,  whom  Hamilton,  in 
fact,  had  mentioned  in  the  Sunday  conversation. 
And  so,  undoubtedly,  Hamilton  was  in  the  plot 

tool 

Some  suspicion  of  that  kind  had  occurred  to 
Pound  on  the  train;  but  he  wondered  now  why 
he  hadn't  seen  it  at  a  glance,  for  certainly  Hamil- 
ton never  was  such  a  fool  as  he  had  appeared 
Sunday.  Why  hadn't  he  seen  that  at  once?  A 
coldness  of  despair  searched  him  through.  All 
along,  it  seemed,  he  had  been  the  merest  gull;  had 
gone  stumbling  headlong  into  their  traps. 

345 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


He  went  out  of  the  bank  rubbing  his  brows, 
feeling  that  someway  his  brains  must  have  gone 
back  on  him  of  late.  He  climbed  into  the  cab 
pondering.  Why  in  the  world,  then,  had  Hamil- 
ton gone  to  St.  Paul  ?  It  seemed  such  a  foolhardy 
risk.  The  Sunday  interview  rose  before  him,  and 
suddenly  he  seized  the  answer.  The  conspirators 
knew  that  when  he  was  in  Toronto  he  had  wired 
Eileen  as  though  he  were  in  Chicago.  Hamilton 
had  gone  up  there  to  engineer  a  row  between 
himself  and  Eileen — and  had  succeeded  beau- 
tifully. They  wanted  to  work  upon  Eileen;  to 
set  her  talking. 

He  shouted  to  the  driver  to  hurry,  and  paral- 
yzed slow-going  Murchison  by  bursting  into  the 
office  like  a  storm.  He  had  no  time  for  Mur- 
chison now;  he  knew  well  enough  what  a  block- 
head role  Murchison  had  been  playing.  He  dove 
for  the  table  where  the  telegraphers  sat.  Even 
then  he  noted  mechanically  that  Billy  Brewer's 
long-jawed  friend  was  gone.  He  got  Patterson 
in  the  St.  Paul  office;  told  him  to  bring  Eileen 
down  to  that  end  of  the  wire  immediately;  she 
was  to  be  told  it  was  vitally  important;  not  a 

346 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


minute  was  to  be  wasted.  If  they  got  her  by 
'phone,  he  calculated,  she  could  be  at  the  office  in 
twenty  or  thirty  minutes. 

In  the  painful  suspense,  his  mind  really  ab- 
sorbed in  other  things,  he  talked  to  Murchison. 
It  was  exactly  as  he  had  supposed.  Only  Mr. 
Algernon  Wyman  had  appeared  on  Thursday; 
the  bad  ankle  kept  Brother  Henry  in  St.  Jude— 
just  as  Murchison  had  informed  Mr.  Pound  by 
wire  at  the  time.  Also,  Murchison  had  turned  the 
bonds  and  bank  statements  over  to  Algernon,  in 
order  that  the  latter  might  take  them  to  St.  Jude 
and  exhibit  them  to  his  sick  brother— all  according 
to  Mr.  Pound's  instructions  over  the  private  wire. 
Looking  apathetically  up  at  the  stocky,  blunt- 
faced,  honest  manager,  Pound  realized  for  the 
first  time  how  much  a  blockhead  he  really  was. 
But  he  did  not  reproach  him ;  did  not  even  tell  him 
the  truth.  For  if  Murchison  was  a  blockhead, 
what  was  he  ? 

Meanwhile,  he  was  bombarding  Patterson  with 
inquiries.  Where  was  Eileen?  Why  didn't  she 
come  down?  But  no  Eileen  came.  Something 
else  came  instead— namely,  word  from  the  dis- 

347 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


traught  Patterson  that  a  receiver  had  just  stepped 
in  and  taken  possession  of  the  office.  Evidently 
Patterson  was  at  his  wits'  end.  A  whole  painful 
hour  passed  before  Pound  could  get  a  satisfactory 
account. 

Benjamin  F.  Totherow,  it  appeared,  had  filed 
the  bill  upon  which  the  receiver  had  been  ap- 
pointed. The  bill  alleged  that  the  bucketshop 
was  insolvent  and  Pound  an  absconder;  that  he 
had  been  abstracting  large  sums  from  the  bucket- 
shop;  especially  that  he  had  abstracted  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  dollars  and  turned  the 
same  over  to  his  wife,  to  whose  credit  it  was  now 
lying  in  a  New  York  bank;  that  Pound  had  made 
all  preparations  to  sail  for  Europe;  had  engaged 
passage;  had  forwarded  his  baggage  to  New 
York. 

Obviously,  Eileen  had  been  blabbing.  Tothe- 
row had  her  in  his  hands.  So  far  as  concerned 
the  bucketshop  the  game  was  up. 

One  card  remained,  however.  The  bucketshop 
itself  had  some  eighty  thousand  dollars  to  its 
credit  in  the  London  and  St.  Lawrence  Bank — 
not  much,  but  better  than  nothing.  It  might  be 

348 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


embezzlement,  but  anything  was  better  than  to  be 
stone  broke.     Pound,  therefore,  commanded  the 
perturbed  Murchison  to  draw  him  a  check  for 
nearly  the  whole  amount.     But  ere  the  manager 
could  comply  word  came  from  the  bank  by  tele- 
phone.   It  had  been  advised  by  wire  from  St.  Paul 
that  the  concern  was  in  the  hands  of  a  receiver; 
must  decline,  for  the  present,  as  mere  matter  of 
self-protection,  to  honor  any  more  of  the  com- 
pany's checks.    So  that  path  was  blocked;  and  at 
this  trying  moment  what  baffled  Pound  more  than 
anything  else  was  that  he  couldn't  lay  his  hands 
on  a  dollar.    It  was  like  finding  one's  self  weapon- 
less in  the  midst  of  a  fight.     For  once  he  was 

really  dazed. 

But  very  soon  something  aroused  him.  Hardly 
twenty  minutes  after  the  telephone  from  the  bank 
another  dispatch  came  from  Patterson.  It  said 
the  newspapers  were  out  with  extras  announcing 
that  Colonel  Myron  Yew  had  been  arrested  in 
connection  with  the  bribery  scandal.  One  of  the 
papers  said  Colonel  Yew  had  made  a  full  confes- 
sion and  a  warrant  was  already  out  for  the  arrest 
of  a  very  prominent  bucketshop  proprietor. 

349 


THE'LOSING  GAME 


Pound  wondered  whether  this  was  a  bluff,  or 
whether  Colonel  Yew  had  made  a  confession  im- 
plicating himself.  Something  now  came  back  to 
him — the  colonel's  anger  at  their  last  interview 
and  his  allegation  that  a  mysterious  person  named 
Hammond  had  originally  set  him  on  to  seek  em- 
ployment from  Pound  in  the  line  of  lobbying. 
Hammond — Pound  seemed  to  remember  that  the 
colonel  had  described  him  as  a  lank,  round-shoul- 
dered, sandy,  smooth-shaven  man;  which  descrip- 
tion would  fit  Hamilton,  now  that  the  mustache 
was  gone. 

Upon  his  mind  arose  the  rounded  outlines  of 
a  wide,  strong  net  spread  with  infinite  patience 
and  great  skill.  It  was  by  no  mere  coincidence 
that  Totherow,  the  Legislative  committee,  the  un- 
friendly newspapers  had  hit  him  at  the  most  fatal 
moments.  An  adroit  and  comprehensive  mind 
had  formed  the  whole  harmonious  plan.  He 
knew  well  enough  whose  mind  it  was. 

He  was  stripped  to  the  bone.  Before  him 
loomed  the  dubious  entanglement  of  the  bribery 
matter,  a  horde  of  outraged  creditors  with  all 
sorts  of  unpleasant  questions  to  ask,  liberal  abuse 

350 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


from  the  newspapers,  all  of  which  he  was  to  face 
without  a  dollar.  Or  else,  he  was  just  quietly  to 
fade  out  of  the  situation  by  the  first  convenient 
train. 

One  further  thing  occurred  to  him.  What  had 
become  of  Tommy  Watrous?  He  asked  Mur- 
chison.  Which  reminded  the  flustered  manager 
that,  on  leaving  last  Thursday  afternoon,  Tommy 
had  put  in  his  hands  a  note  which  was  to  be  de- 
livered to  Mr.  Pound  the  first  time  the  latter 
came  to  Toronto.  Murchison  procured  the  note. 
The  superscription  was  not  in  Tommy's  hand,  but 
in  feminine  characters  with  which  Pound  was 
very  familiar.  He  crossed  over  and  sat  down 
before  breaking  the  seal.  The  note  was  dated 
Thursday,  and  ran : 

Dear  Johnny:  Tommy  and  I  were 
married  here  today.  Thought  it  only 
right  to  leave  word  for  you.  I'm 
awfully  fond  of  Tommy.  We  sail^ to- 
morrow. Expect  to  be  gone  a  long  time 
and  travel  all  over.  You  know,  I've 
always  wanted  to  travel  a  lot,  but  was 
called  back  by  business  the  last  time. 
Ham  and  May  will  join  us  soon.  They 
are  going  to  be  married.  You'll  be  glad 
to  know  that  he  hasn't  drunk  a  drop  in  a 
351 


THE  LOSING  GAME 


long  while,  but  has  been  attending 
strictly  to  business.  Honestly,  Johnny, 
I  wish  you  all  kinds  of  good  luck  in  the 
future. 

Yours  EMMA. 

Finally,  Pound  put  the  note  in  his  breast  pocket. 
It  came,  to  him  that  he  had  toasted  Tommy's 
bride.  What  a  fool  she  had  made  of  him.  But 
there  was  a  vague  cheer  in  the  fact  that  she  wished 
him  luck — in  the  future.  As  for  the  present, 
rather  than  go  through  the  bribery  mess  and  the 
mess  with  the  creditors,  penniless,  he  thought  he 
would  fade  away. 


THE  END 


352 


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